The Importance of Running

I would trade all that I have learned and all the ways in which I have grown to erase it. No amount of reading or empathy prepared me for how my body told me what my mind could not, that no, I did not want him to touch me. When the anxiety and paranoia became too much, I would pick myself up an old pair of sneakers and head out amongst the red cedars and sick cus' spruce. It was a form of self-hatred and self-care,. A reflection of the disjointed and tense cultural narrative we hear about sexual assault. If I had the choice, I would change that night.