Driving Home

I remember tha car ride.

You alternating between slurring syllables cause you were too tired

And rocking back and forth like the earth on it’s tilt.

I sat there in silence praying you wouldn’t see I was crying.

But also praying that you would.

That these five glistening droplets falling down my cheeks

Would make you open your eyes

And see that I’ve been riding back-seat-feet-on-the-hump for so much of my life

That I’ve convince myself it’s what I deserve.

I stared down those white dashes in the road like they were mortal enemies.

But I really stared because I couldn’t look at you.

Couldn’t watch you drive that old beat up car along an old beat up road.

I watched as they hypnotized me to drown out all my pain.

I watched as they blurred and sped into white slugs moving at lightning speeds

To dash themselves like leemings under your tires.

And then the car flipped and the fire started and everything was torn to pieces.

Well it didn’t go quite that way

But as I sat there

Silent

Breathing in the nearly November air

You have no idea how much I prayed for death.

Prayed that somehow if I was going to die soon

The Lord would take me then.

Take me,

A broken bleeding shell,

Trapped in a mundane existence that killed my spirit

And take in a moment that made me weep because it was so beautiful.

Yes in 3 minutes and 45 seconds all of these things,

As you waver between ecstasy and exhaustion,

Happened.

And you had no idea.

No idea, just like always.