For Yulia - My Russian Personal Trainer Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

THE CURSE OF FITNESS

With heavy anguish, hopeless straining -
Standing still - she chides reproof.
Oh, to be loosed from personal training!
Oh, freedom, only not to move!

The body shame and fear is scourging -
Lunges, planks and bridges tear the flesh.
From pain dear God and her insistent urging,
Spare me flinching from the sets refresh.

Is pity's wall alone unshaken?
I pray to God, I cry in vain,
More weary, by all hope forsaken;
Recurrent squats segue pain again.

There is no respite ever given
Enslaved by lifts, by weights reduced;
I suffer tortured, hounded, driven
Promised life though aching, stiff, contused.


[With acknowledgment to Russian Poet Dmitriy Merezhkovsky (1866–1941) ]