Aidan Naughton Poems

Does the chameleon know that it is changing
when it begins to blend in with an environment?
Can it consciously choose to remain the familiar green
against the corrugated bark?
...

We were just kids, running through the night without a care in the world like birds in the sky flying south for the winter; we were going to our second home. Just like the summer has its winter the day has its night. So we fled from our daily lives and into the softer shades that were provided by the moon's sweet glow. It was the purest essence of freedom. Our steps echoed on the concrete ground as we ran and laughed and yelled. The rhythmic beat of footfalls: a melody singing out to the midnight vagabonds, like us, who hid in the shroud of night to forget their daily routine just long enough that they could play pretend under the moonlight. The quickened breaths: a perfect sign of the excitement flowing through our veins unmatched by any other feeling in the world. The phone call: a piercing tone to shatter the serenity so heavily hanging in the air, like a knife passing through skin, looking for a deeper home within.

I answered the call with a robust greeting. I was met with a quiet whimper. Running, it was remedy for a cloudy mind, where a man braves his grave thoughts, tormented by demons. Two runners, side by side, into the night they charge, aimless. The reason to run makes all the difference, to go, to explore, to seek, to experience life... or to get away from it.
...