Distance decides the meditation.

One hundred meters. That doesn't meditate. That kills.

Teeth clenched, heart sideways in the throat. The body is a weapon.

The throat burns. The thighs are on fire before halfway.

You don't think of anything. No time.

It's animal.

But that's not what I'm after.

I'm after something further. Five kilometers. Ten.

The first minutes, the body protests. The head says stop.

I don't listen. It'll go quiet.

Ten minutes pass. The step lands on its own.

The shoulders drop. The pelvis finds its place.

After a while, the body stops making noise.

The legs have found their rhythm. The breath too.

What remains is the white line on the ground.

I follow it. Then there's no difference between it and me.

The knee that lifts. The arm that swings back. The same gesture, ten thousand times.

The feet land in the same spot. I no longer hear the impact.

At some point I can't tell if I'm pushing the belt or the belt is pushing me.

That's where I leave.

I don't decide to leave. I notice I'm already elsewhere.

The angles, as long as they keep coming. Nothing else.

The breath becomes the metronome. It turns without me holding it.

Thoughts still come. But they don't grab anymore.

Something opens.

I see things I had forgotten. A color. A January morning. They don't bother me. They pass.

The longer the distance, the less I'm there.

At some point, the legs keep going and I'm elsewhere. I couldn't say where.

This is the meditation I didn't look for. It came on its own. Through the legs.

When the timer beeps, I no longer know how long I've been running.

It takes me a few seconds to remember where I am.

I slow down, I stop. The legs tremble a little.

I open my eyes. Something has settled.