All I have to do is go around the corner
To the other entrance to the parking lot
This should be easy
Driving is easy
I pull up to the road and look both ways
And horror strikes me to my core
The street isn’t empty

My knuckles turn pale as I grip the steering wheel
Like a cross to keep myself from shaking
My foot is on the gas pedal
The direction that this 3,000 pound machine goes
Is under my control
I lose control of my breath

I pull out onto the street

Swerve into the left lane
My mind says
There’s a family next to you
A mother singing along to the radio
A father stressing about his job
A little girl playing video games in the back
Next to her baby brother, still in a car seat
Their lives are fragile
My mind tells me
Slaughter them

I stop at the stop sign and look both ways

Humans are made of paper and glass
They collapse and shatter in a gentle breeze
And with this car I am Prospero
I can call tempests
I can crush their ribcages
Beneath the weight of metal and horsepower
Even if mother and father live
They must live with the empty space
Left behind by their much more tenuous children
I am collapsing under the weight of the power I hold
I am overwhelmed with visions of what I could do
What I might do
What I fear I will do

I turn the corner

I want to reach into my skull
And rip my brain free from its cavity
I do not want it to control me
I have no power over these obsessions
Despite the cocktail of medications I am prescribed
Despite the therapy
The conditioning
I can always pull the steering wheel
These intrusive thoughts will always infect me
They spread from my head to the rest of my body like a disease
I am sick

I pull back into the parking lot