Thank you to Miguel Cullen: Poet and spoken-word performer, on how jogging without contact lenses in can improve-mindfulness.
I am badly short-sighted, and can get anxiety attacks on a run: What a mess, right?!
So when I jogged in Victoria Park last night I took out my contact lenses.
There was a tree that looked like the Jolly Roger, the ship in Peter Pan;
With its nut masting, emerald sails, sailing on a violet sunset-sky
And I thought about Captain Hook’s crocodile eating the clock, and what it might mean?
Stealing the power of being forever young, from the Lost Boys?
Later as I walked down these east London streets I saw myself as Oliver Twist;
Stealing pocket watches, to take home to the Artful Dodger and his rag-tag of delinquents,
Seeing his mother’s face in the open clockface, like Agnes’s locket, his way out of the sewer.
My mind worried, as it tends to do on jogs;
I worried: if I got hit-and-run on the Park road,
No one would realise that I didn’t have contact lenses in.
My one enemy will walk in out of the blur, give me a hug and say hello;
Daisies looked like spilt flour, the sky felt like cream silk, brushing past my cheek,
As I jogged I became more charismatic, and thought up all the things I’m telling you today,
And thought they were really clever.