It is snowing, just a little. I tilt my head back to get a better look. Tiny white dots are floating down, barely discernable against low flat clouds, their wrinkled bellies lit up from sky glow. It looks so peaceful, surrounded by deep evening, but I am abusing the inside of my head with a torrent of loud music. The Beastie Boys, “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” vulgar confrontational power chords and a salacious slow rolling bass drum pound and you know all I can think about is my next run. Running is my love affair, this dark pavement is my lover. He is hard on me, threatens to take me apart joint by joint, and I promise I will let him. In the dark here we will split me apart, and I will stretch my legs, open my stride, to encompass as much as fast as hard as I can. Neither one of us comes first, we are even in this, this nighttime sidewalk, this spangle of bouncing headlights, this harsh of winter air will take me all the way home.