The flickering headlights break the darkness
And the white lines dart past my left.
The road only exists for fifty feet at a time
And though I cannot see the rest, but I am faithful it exists
The last cigarette I smoked
is only a stale ashtray taste and a tickle in my throat.
My friend lives close to here
at one point I would have felt comfortable enough to drop in unannounced and at one point I loved her enough to lie in order to see her

but now I will quietly drive by, paying little attention.
This ride should only take an hour but it’s taking more
the morass I call a country road.
My mind begins to wander from the task at hand, driving,
and I feel the tired pressure coming from the inside of my eyeballs
But the sudden tumultuous flurry of thought wakes me up.
What has this night been, nothing worth mentioning
what will tomorrow be, most likely the same but who knows.
I begin to narrate my ride in my mind muttering it under my breath,
“the asphalt is dark as the sky melts into the grass, the split railed fence jets off to the right. It is disheartening to think that such a feeble fence can encapsulate such large animals as horses and cows….the tree lined drives of suburbia’s suburbia are my setting for this night and I am the only character in my story and the plot I know and am helpless to change it”

I then begin to realize the road dementia that I am suffering
I haven’t been paying any attention for lord knows how long and I cannot remember the last few miles. I must concentrate to make it alive.

I hunch down and inch closer to the windshield placing my chin on the wheel.
The night is my only companion for this ride, it is sitting right next to me.
The first car in miles is rushing toward me blazing high beams and its engine screaming. It flies by and illuminates the black that I have already ventured though.

I take my eyes off the road, in the rearview mirror I watch the tail lights drive away.
It’s one forty-five and I’m unfulfilled, I wait for a flashback in hopes that the adventure that would ensue would fulfill my heart, but it does not come.

Sixty-five miles per hour in a forty on a dark yet familiar country road and I’m rounding the home stretch and I’m debating whether or not to turn at the next curve…

Henry Kozinski

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Posted 5/01/07

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