A Friday night.
A slippery street.
A man, intoxicated.
Sitting in the driver's seat.

A family.
A man and his wife.
A young child.
Worthy of life.

A young adolescent.
A night with a loved one.
Never thought for a moment
It might be the last one.

A poor decision.
A light turned red.
A delayed reaction.
Head-on collision.

A first responder.
A face, bleach white.
A shirt stained red
They've lost their fight.

A stretcher in an ambulance.
A paramedic on the call.
A dreaded flat line.
They've tried and lost them all.

A police officer
On the phone, against the wall.
"Hello, this is the police.
I'm really sorry I have to make this call."

A funeral for a family
Every casket closed.
Everyone is asking why.
They never got to say goodbye.

A female kneeling at the grave
looking down with bloodshot eyes
"I love you and I want you back,
I hope you hear me from the sky"

That poor decision was a choice
You said it wasn't worth catching a ride
And you can't ever take it back now
These are families torn apart and dead inside

Rising sun reflects
beaming straight into my eyes
sunglasses missing

Good friends, long drives and country nights
fast cars, dark roads and high-beam lights.
Complete content all in despite
the lives we lived we left behind.

An air so cramped with smoke we lined
we drink to death our whole design.
The world in which we all collide
is now the world we must refine.

Yet soon we must return confined
back into our joyless lives.
It’s this we must try to remind,
The very nature of mankind.

But why the rush? We need not hide.
We’re free of all that we declined!
At last, a path we can all ride
to drive and drive into the night.

I wore an old perfume today
so I could remember who I was
when I felt my first love
the scent overpowered me just like you did
and as I drove home
the scent filled my car
as the first rain of winter spotted my windshield
and for the first time since I stopped wearing this perfume
I smiled when I thought of you.

Out on a drive with me
It all starts out the same
The second that I turn the key
It turns into a game.

First, on the radio:
The song has to be just right
Especially not advertisements,
Sometimes they keep me from sleeping at night.

After that, I sit and think
And think and think some more
But the more I think, the more I ask
What is this all for?

Hey! No time for crises!
Let’s play games!
How many cars can you stack?
Anything to keep my brain tame.

But I’ve already thought of that game
So many times
I don’t want to play that game anymore
Repetition is what I most despise.

So I think my thoughts again
They’re even louder now
Stop stop stop stop
But how how how?

My pressure increases on the gas
Zoom zoom zoom
But it’s not because I want to go fast
It’s my head: boom boom boom

It pounds with the same thoughts
Over and over— yet
I can’t just think about something else
I can’t let myself forget

What if I crash the car?
What if I die tonight?
Stop stop please stop
Filling my head with more fright

I take a different way home
I’ve taken that one too many times
Even though it’s a little slower
And there are way too many lights

The water dripping down my neck
Is Chinese water torture
So wipe it off quickly quickly NOW
before you subject yourself to more torture

Torture torture
Driving like this is torture
Stop grinding your teeth, it hurts
You’ve been doing it since your departure

Honest to god, I want it to stop
The repetition is too much
I hate it
I hate it
I hate it
Make it stop.

Today I drove past your house,
For a moment I thought I would scream,
For a moment I thought I knocked on your door,
Just like in my dreams.

The road felt like my own veins, winding throughout my body to keep me moving, to keep me alive.
I pull over,
Turn off the engine,
Hands tense around the steering wheel.
Eyes closed, I am taken back to the midnight conversations and coffee orders and that photo of us.
Oh, that photo of us.

Suddenly, I am home.

Sitting in my driveway, the time has passed me like a summer’s love affair: quick and disappointing. My knuckles clench until they glow white.

Nothing can change how I feel,
No highway hypnosis or holistic home remedy can heal this hurt.

Today I drove past your house and

Suddenly, I’m home.