Running and crying

Stopping only to cough

Up the Gatorade

I drank during the game

A heavy rain falls

And visibility decays into sureality

I cough and I cry

Losing myself in the rain,

And the grip on my new hat

- it had never really fit –

slipping and skinning both elbows

dropping my bat

it never could hit

the ball into the gap

that big, green hole in right field

that everyone could see but me

so I keep running

hatless in the rain,

a loser in a bloody new uniform,

rain-soaked,

chugging home

like a riverboat

caught in a gale

barely staying afloat,

crying, running,

trying not to choke

or slip again on the pain.