Vitiation
by Brad Johnson

      
      
        "they themselves decreed
Thir own revolt, not I"
            John Milton, Paradise Lost

I first outran my father
when I was fourteen-years-old.
He was a doctor and not
athletic but he could beat
me at everything. He was
bigger, stronger, and in tune
with the way things work like when
we would watch rented movies,
he always said the ending
in the first twenty minutes.
He was more than I was, but
I was growing.

        I first tried
to run away at seven.
I packed my backpack with cans
of tuna and a liter
bottle of Jolt. He caught me
at the front door and pinned me
against the house until my
fight was gone.

        The second time
wasn't as well thought out and
he stood below the window
as I dangled my legs out.

But when I was fourteen and
refused to take the garbage
out, or questioned why I must
spend another long weekend
grounded, or confessed my grades
on a French test, I took off.

Out the back door, through the gate,
across the gravel driveway,
past dinner lights of twilight
suburbia, my feet slapped
along and my father, still
in his suit, his tie not yet
loosened, slapped along after
me. The oaks were just shadows.
The night was layered in black.

I ran, pushed by the known force
behind me, gaining on me,
expelling me like a wave.
Down our long block and into
the playground, we exerted
ourselves in our strange relay
until I heard, "Stop. Please stop."
And I didn't.

        I stayed out
all night listening to the chains
of the swings clang in the wind.
Victories were important
then. The first of everything
means more, until years later
when all meaning is reversed.

Brad Johnson is currently teaching Literature and Composition at Keiser College in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Miami. His chapbook, Void Where Prohibited, was published in 2003 by Pudding House Press, and his work has recently appeared in Into the Teeth of the Wind, Jeopardy, No Exit, Sho, Poetry Motel, and Red River Review.