I remember you telling me how you thought highways were poetic.

There’s a spot I like to go to at night that overlooks the pacific highway,
a wall covered in vines,
I sit there and feel calm.
I can see the poetry in the way the red and white bleeding lights stretch along this road to nowhere.
I can see the poetry in the way each car holds a human
who is living a life that is not mine
and how each life is different
and how for a brief moment these lives are on the same path.
The man on his way home from work,
who has no one to go home to but a dog,
he is tired and he is a hard worker.
He remembers that he is out of milk so he takes the next exit.
A woman who just came from a first date,
who is disappointed because she isn’t sure if she’ll connect with another person the way she connected with her ex-lover,
she regrets the lies she told.
Their cars race forward
and their lonely thoughts chase them home.
These cars are going so fast,
I find it hard to focus on one for more than a moment.  
However,
there is poetry in the way that I am still, while life is going fast.
They say being still isn’t progressive.
They say being still will get me nowhere.
But, I am grounded when I am still.
I am savoring every fleeting moment.
I am taking my time to get to where I am supposed to be and I am not even sure where that is.
I remember you telling me how you thought highways were poetic.
Tonight, I'm thinking that too.

So last night she picked up the phone and called you
The number you dialed is not responding, please try again later
So she did
Again
And again
Her pride escaping her as fast as the tears escaping her eyes
And she tried to catch them
But it’s hard to catch something when your simultaneously falling
And there’s no one to catch you

I was waiting to become something bigger than myself
something astronomical; imprinted eternally
in the infinite cosmos; i wanted to be a constellation
I wanted to never have to fade out or burn away
not even in your memories.
selfish, yes. egotistical, probably.
and still, i longed to keep you awake at night,
i yearned for astronomers to gaze and ponder
at the marvellous miracle that was myself
narcissism is eating me away; that unquenchable thirst
to live unending in the spaces between breaths
but in the end, my blood isn't stardust, or fire
when i fall away to bones, to dust, to nothing
it will have simply been red.

future is waning
slowly receding
depths of my mind try to conquer an untouchable future
something so vaguely assinine about dreaming of success
scatter the puzzle pieces of my diminishing heart
pray that they will find their way back together
i cannot even grasp what lies at my feet
how can i look to the heavens and try and fall in love with a reality that ceases to exist with my ever continuing heartbeat?

I need to stop being me
There’s somebody else
That I want to be
I spend nearly all of my time
Thinking of me
Thinking of mine
I seem to be stuck
In this unwritten rhyme
Since beginningless time

Sean Hunt  May 2016