I’m stopping because I’m hungry
and I’m not sure I want to keep trying this
I’ve been talking to my mirrors and when I stop at train crossings they talk to me too
They all talk to me, though sometimes they say the same things
Trains say unrelenting journey, relief in hardship
fruit say dull things, despite their bright appearance
glass says things I could never imagine
I’m not sure what you say though, you’re hard to tell
I could make things up for you to say
but they would be my words
and that is unsatisfying

Outside Oklahoma City

I can hear your voice
for a thousand miles.
From a greasy diner
your words project.

The young couple in the next booth
secretly meeting to exchange
the briefest of contact. Contempt
for our destiny in their glances.
They are uncomfortable vinyl reports.
Cutlery sings a lovesong.
You talk as I eat your words
hushed, draw me from afar.

"When will you tell them?
You can't keep on hiding this,
if you love me you will tell them.
Won't you?"

"They wouldn't understand, (drink)
injections would follow. (vinyl creaks)
I don't want to be drugged
you complete me, they don't want that."

The waitress stares simply.

Despite all of this sudden bleakness

Despite the monotonous, slightly muted groan of asphalt under rubber and the eerie apparitions on the horizon that grow and grow until they become brilliant, split, and pass with a gust

Despite the absence of sounds

Despite the mind numbing sensibility of the dashboard

Despite the nowhere feeling that makes me forget where I am going

Despite the spinning feeling experienced while stopped at gas stations, exposed to eyes that may hold me pinned, for once still, motionless

I still feel above the trance-like routines, the sweaty grip on the wheel, the last-breath-huff of the air conditioner unwaveringly huffing on my face

tranced, myself, by the notion of finding you

above even myself, aside from the stationary hours spent speeding toward you

none of it is aimless

I am finding you

Bloomington

Students in disguise

as real people

who's crazy?

So close to a utopia

except for the confused poor

Why are those most capable

of generosity

the least of all

The young blocking out

the aging

in their town

but also out of their minds

who's crazy???

I'd almost forgotten about Sonoma
where I hear you're waiting
I'd have to be crazy
to make you wait another day

You're in the valley
where else would you choose to be?

Fort Wayne

Late in the night
masked in the cadence
of the road you told me
why this picture spoke of us
you'd sent it for a reason I knew
you said it was metaphor
for what we have.

Two souls rooted
on a precipice against
the cold blanket of suspicion
cast by those who don't understand.
Struggling to resist falling
into the abyss.

You called out to me from afar
resisting you is like resisting being.
I know you are waiting
each song on
the radio tells me your secrets.