The Century She Outran (Wilma Rudolph)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Your legs remember what the doctors said you'd never do—
synaptic pathways burning bright where doubt had lived before,
each morning you rewired yourself, long-term potentiation
firing through your thighs, your calves, your will made muscle,
the track beneath your feet a map of what the brain rewrites
when it refuses its own verdict.

[Chorus]
Run the way your body learned to dream,
those strides eating ground like joy itself,
your feet remembering flight before your mind knew flight was possible,
and everything you touch becomes the proof.

[Verse 2]
Your cortex remapped itself—proprioception sharp as hunger,
every synapse in your legs rewoven, myelinated sheaths accelerating
signal after signal down the chain of your becoming,
theta waves flooding through your hippocampus as you memorized
the exact angle, the exact burn, the exact moment
when your body stopped asking permission and just flew.

[Chorus]
Run the way your body learned to dream,
those strides eating ground like joy itself,
your feet remembering flight before your mind knew flight was possible,
and everything you touch becomes the proof.

[Bridge]
Mirror neurons firing—watching others moved something deep,
but you were the blueprint, the living contradiction,
neurogenesis blooming in the garden of your refusal,
every stride a cell renewed, a pathway blazing new,
interoception singing through your chest: *I am able*.

[Chorus]
Run the way your body learned to dream,
those strides eating ground like joy itself,
your feet remembering flight before your mind knew flight was possible,
and everything you touch becomes the proof.

[Outro]
Your footprints pressed into the earth like music written permanent,
legs that said *no* to the narrow room they built,
and still they're running through us, still they're flying.

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**WORD COUNT: 287 words** ✓