The car is speeding.
We can make it in three -
no, two and a half.

She’s laughing and swerving the car,
left and right,
our tires humming warning.

The passenger is holding the door handle,
not quite used to her driving
but already broken in that strange way.

She turns to me, a contorted comfort
glad to be along for the ride
and her neck strains as she thinks,
not wanting to lose sight of my eyes.

I tell her that i’m sad, and that nothing is right,
and her reply would linger in my head like the smell
sitting flatly on my thumb and index,
fixed in a gun.

*We’re artists, you know?
And maybe, on some absolute level,
we don’t want to be happy.