When she goes out, it's like it's her last night alive.
When he goes out, he clears his mind by taking a midnight drive through the countryside.
After a long night alone in an empty bar, she decided to take a chance and get in her car.
He went out too but didn't make it very far. Only 10 miles.
10 miles from home, 2 lives were lost.
10 miles from home, she didn't think about the cost.
10 miles from home, 2 families will never be the same.
10 miles from home stands a memorial with a picture and their names

Evening darkens upon the moors,
Forgiveness—a hairless thing
skirting the headlamps, fugitive.

Why have we come,
traversing the long miles
and extremities of solitude,
worriedly crisscrossing the wrong maps
with directions
obtained from passing strangers?

Why do we sit,
frantically retracing
love’s long-forgotten signal points
with cramping, ink-stained fingers?

Why the preemptive frowns,
the litigious silences,
when only yesterday we watched
as, out of an autumn sky this vast,
over an orchard or an onion field,
wild Vs of distressed geese
sped across the moon’s face,
the sound of their panicked wings
like our alarmed hearts
pounding in unison?

My family did get lost in an English moor on a dark moonless night. It happened when I was a boy. My mother was driving and seemed to have no idea where we were, or which direction to head. I wondered if we would ever find civilization again. It was a very spooky experience that I drew on for my poem. Keywords/Tags: England, Devon, moor, car, headlamps, headlights, directions, maps, points, routes, strangers, signals, orchard, field, geese, hearts, relationships, parting, separation, divorce, loneliness, alienation, free verse

Interesting Girl
The car was painted mat black
With red rimmed wheels
The windows were tinted
There were no plates
It looked menacing
Even if it was driven
By a girl...

...Who flew the plane
An F-35 Aggressor version
It was like her car
Mat black all over
With red wheel rims
A tinted cockpit
And no markings...

And I'll run until I can't remember
the weight of your hands on my hips
until I can smell your shampoo
and not wish to run my hands through your hair.

I'll run until I forget
what it was like to stand still and be held
so close to your beating heart.
Until that afternoon
where I was pinned underneath you
fades completely from my memory.

Yes, I'll run and scream and fight
until I can walk beside you
without a heart of lead carving ruts in my wake
without casting glances
and admiring your beauty.
I will rage and burn
until I can see a bougainvillea
without immediately hearing your voice;
your careful singing in my shower,
your laugh, your low, stolen whispers.

And I'll keep weeping and wishing
that there were no kisses to forget,
no notes to burn or keep,
no flowers that crumble in my grasp,
no shirts that smell like you,
no jigsaw hollows where you still fit perfectly.
Wondering how long it will be
before the songs don't make me think of you
before the kitchen is just the kitchen
and my bedroom is just a bedroom.
                               before I fulfill your wish
                               and we are just friends again.

Friends who once snuck off,
held hands,
talked at midnight,
shared a bed (albeit only once)
shared favorite memories,
played guitar in the dark,
laughed at their own shy ways,
almost kissed,
almost became more.

Almost made it.

I will grind myself to dust,
if only it makes it easy to swallow
the bitter break of a first love,
a stolen heart, returned only to shatter
in my grasp. We hugged quickly, spun apart
when all I wanted is to cry and hold you
the way a dying man clings to the lifeboat.

Maybe a car will drive by
throwing out some light
onto my face in the dark
catching on my tears there
revealing my vulnerabilities

Maybe a car will drive by
then when I leave the house
they'll think of me tomorrow
as a story on the morning news
or maybe they won't remember

Maybe a car will drive by
as I walk alone in the dark
the driver won't even glance at me
the headlights flickering across
without ever noticing my figure

Maybe a car will drive by
and it will bless me tonight
it will drive along the bridge
I will look at it from the ledge
and it could hit me on accident