Cover Photo: John Bencina
John Bencina

When I Was a Runner

“I never found a replacement for running; I know I never will.”

Just let them go,

Once a Runner

not

were

Once a Runner,

thing

heyou

could no

real

is

Wings on my back, wings on my backwings on my back believed


Justin Brouckaert's work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Passages North, DIAGRAM, NANO Fiction and Smokelong Quarterly, among other publications, and his essay "What Not to Do at the Starting Line" won Blue Earth Review's 2015 Flash Nonfiction Contest. He is a James Dickey Fellow at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches creative writing, edits Yemassee, and is working on a novel about runners.