I remember it like it was yesterday.
We were driving a little too fast,
and the destination didn't matter.
I was just watching you,
Singing the song on the radio,
Reciting every line perfectly,
(me chiming in where I could),
The smile on your face filled my heart with nostalgia.
Because in that moment,
You weren't the guy that you grew up to be,
You were the boy I fell in love with years ago.

I go to that moment whenever I miss you.
Whenever my heart goes numb,
Or worse,
When I can feel every ounce of pain from you not being there.

In that moment,
I was safe.
In that moment,
I knew,
the definition of never-ending.
I knew,
that I would forever be stuck,
In that seat,
In that car,
In that moment,
Watching you.

Crystal White Pearl paint,
red racing stripes,
MX-5 traced
on the side

Lightweight aluminum
alloy, seventeen inch
wheels wrapped in
205/45 summer
performance tires,

Limited-
Slip Differential,
rear wheel drive,

Six-speed manual
transmission, weighted
shift ****, perfectly
palm-sized

Black sport clutch
bucket seats, seamed
racing red stitching, a clutch
worked with a snap
of the heel, a flick
of the wrist.

Crystal White dash panel,
red racing stripe
MX-5 traced lines
match the stripes outside.

Piano Black
mirrors match
bucket seats
and the cloth
soft top

unfolds on summer days,
spring nights, fall
mornings.

Heaven/
Nirvana/
Happiness

found
now
with a snap of the heel
& flick of the wrist.

Only when you finally give Jesus the wheel do you realize that you have been driving blind folded

Wind in my hair
Fingertips grasp for the sunlight
through the looking glass
All of these places (empty spaces)
and all of these people (blurred faces)
are so beautiful to drive by,
but will I ever want to stop?

Even after you move,
your muscles still turn
the steering wheeling
to your old house
and you tell your brain
that the movements are wrong
but still you do it,
in case you drive back
to what used to be
and find
that it is still yours

"It's been a few hours," you said,
"I feel fine."
But the crash didn't take your life,
It took mine.
Well mine and some others,
A family of four.
As the bumpers collided,
The windshield became my door.
While I take my last breaths,
On this pavement death bed,
I watch you get out of the car,
Walking, crying, shaking your head.
Four bubbling drinks,
Took five important lives.
I can only hope the next time you take a sip,
Those bubbles stab at your memory like knives.

there is a woman
who drives
the bus I take to school in the morning
I always wonder, more often than not
why she works on a bus
it must be tedious and boring
running the same route over and over again
dealing with girls like me
who
more often than not
forgot their money
she is pretty, young
wears expensive sunglasses
but she drives the high school bus
full of loud, rude kids
instead of something
she would find more
appealing.
but maybe she likes the repetition, the change
the power of driving us each day
maybe she relishes our little lives
in her hands
which grip the steering wheel
as she navigates the streets
maybe she enjoys the challenge
of wide turns and
negotiating her way through the streets like
an overweight pedestrian
on a busy sidewalk

How can you say
That you’re doing ok,
If the road doesn’t have any curves?
You got miles to drive,
Stay awake, stay alive
Meet the challenges life always serves,
You start out driving fast,
But the feeling won’t last
And complacency won’t win the race.
You can tell who is there,
By the look of despair
And the blank, vacant stare on their face.

Yeah, you’re gonna need help,
You can’t survive by yourself;
And you may even pass someone by.
Never look in the mirror
‘Cause you don’t want to hear
The friends that you left behind cry.
So you’re living at last,
Got no time for the past,
And the future is still miles away,
Better not close your eyes,
‘Cause the road’s a disguise
You have to listen to what the signs say.

As you start to get older,
Nights will get a lot colder
And the engine is starting to fail.
Takes more time to react,
Then you take a look back, and
Other drivers are right on your tail.
Should you pull the car over,
And drive on the shoulder?
Or speed up as they flip you the bird?
They may scream in your face -
May think you’re a disgrace -
Smile back like you just never heard!

‘Cause the race isn’t over
When you’re pushing up clover
Other drivers may be miles ahead
Some are just getting started
Some already departed
In a few miles we all will be dead.
It’s not about driving
Living… surviving, or
Accepting the way that you feel.
There’s a much bigger plan
You’re just lending a hand,
By taking your turn at the wheel.

Let a little lonely thrill
careen from Ikea bolt
to Ikea ***** under the thin,
chipped legs of my folding chair.
Let it bolt across the
tabletop like a daddy long
legs when the kitchen light
flips on and hums into
a deflated, blinding brightness
at 3:26 am on a Wednesday in February.

Let a little lonely thrill
find its way past my loose
muscles and blooming skin-
let it melt down into my dankness
and start to sing so loud
that even my sweat radiates vibrato.

I want it to burrow from
ear canals to pastel brain
and flood my gums
after seeping through cheekbone
pores, hostile and sun-stained.

I need to feel it scream
its loud, grisly engine
to life from the parts of me that
might soon spoil.
I'm not moldy but you're
also not yet desperate. (Your checking
account can handle a few more
diner trips and coffee runs
and it's already Thursday.)
With any luck you can avoid
chewing on me entirely this week.

I am (silently, always silently)
begging
those manic hero spirits
that bounce
and rise across every pothole
of every road that my
tires didn't dodge.
(Whether by lack of skill
or lack of will is up for debate-)
I don't want the trails back.
What's the fun of tracing a failed
treasure hunt backwards?
It hurts more than it heals.
It illuminates exactly where each wrong turn
was made, ignored or aggressively denied.

I'll finish this road trip but
I know this whole playlist by heart.
I'm done with truck stop maps
that I can't fold correctly,
that I can't keep from tearing
along the creases.

I'm done with wine flavored Black
and Milds, wooden tip,
bought in boxes of five
or individually with dimes
and ripped dollar bills
stashed in the glove box,
kept there specifically
for the occasional urge to storm
any aspect of myself with concentrated
poison and my lungs volunteer.

I'm done with getting by on
metallic coffee four Splendas
and my white knuckles,
my raw nerves.

I've made it clear I can maintain this
grit that I've been dragging across
the Tri-State Area since last June,
but I can no longer ignore
the constant windburn
on my shoulders, chest
and forehead.
I need to spend some time with my back
to the express lane on the interstate.

I need a break.
I need to let someone else drive for a while.
I need to sit passenger side with
my hair down, bare feet hanging out
the window and lost in a daydream
that is so very far away.
I need to let the sun pour
wide and easy
into my open mouth,
janky limbs finally loose,
the words at the tip of my tongue
hitchhiking on the caress
of slicing traffic.

I'll keep my sunglasses on deep
into the night-
until each lightning bug has kissed me Hello,
Darling. Good Evening,
and it becomes hard to tell a yellow traffic light
from the moon.

I'll just coast. I'll know the salt in my mouth
is the day's hard work cooing at me;
that the sweat of my neck has been absorbed back
into me; stiffening my clothes and curling my hair,
until I'm back behind the too-tall steering wheel,
avoiding tolls and damp again.

Because lately I've been so tired.
I can't see straight to my neon-exhilarate.
I know a little time with my head lolling
again the seat, the window, you,
and a little sip of the landscape
taken for purely what it is
instead of what it's becoming-
will stretch my gut back where
it belongs instead of double knotted
to the tailpipe, waving along, air-drying.

Give me a few hours and I may
nearly forget the slow
burn of that ever-aching ghost light.
I think I'll close my eyes now-
If I focus  all of my energy toward
a mind and body learning
stillness, I can almost feel
a rhapsody at one thousand sun beams.
It's a new day in America,
it's a new day in my bones.