I. Dawn’s Pulse
The city inhales—steel veins constrict,
a million feet drum the same cracked script.
Faces blur into smudged glass,
while sirens carve lanes for the bloodied elite.
One ambulance swallows a man’s last breath,
another clears the CEO’s path.
History’s wheel? No—just the same axe
sharpened on the necks it pretends to spare.
II. The Anatomy of Running
Life: an open vein. Each heartbeat
a failed stitch. You recognize these two?
—The first man knots his noose with payroll slips,
the second laughs through veneers, gripping
a gold pen that signs his own arrest.
Neither knows the joke:
their lungs pump the same thick air,
their bones the same borrowed calcium.
The finish line? A hologram.
III. The Shortcut Myth
We map our escapes on screens—
Faster routes! Instant wins!
But the algorithm’s only law:
You will hit the wall you built.
Watch: that bike courier? Now a crimson asterisk
on the crosswalk. That stockbroker?
A stroke mid-trade, his last thought:
\"I was saving ten minutes.\"
The race loves your haste.
It feeds on the sweat you mistake for fuel.
IV. Coda: The Only Winning Move
Stop.
Let the machinery wheeze past.
Plant your feet in the concrete
until it cracks into meadow.
The race was never yours.
The trophy? A noose dipped in chrome.
Now breathe—
and watch the whole damn system
stall without your legs.