Highways
"Highways"
My car thrums in the dead of night,
carrying me home from the nameless countryside.
Ten minutes ago I dropped off a friend,
gave him to the care of another car
which tramped off into the darkness
of dusty gravelroads and empty fields of grass.
We were going to the railroad tracks,
following the trail of some girl he likes-
She seems alright, but then, I don't know her.
We missed five turns before I heard the call
of my unfinished homework, the ten-thirty midterm
and informed my friend that I was calling it a night.
So here I am, car thrumming, alone,
mildly expecting an axe murderer,
the glint of his freshly sharpened blade
flashing in my headlights.
It never occurs to me that I am going so fast
that he would die on impact long before
he could sink that honed edge into my forehead;
phantom axe murderers are like that.
I think of my friend-
a friend who I love,
and who I somewhat resent,
and who I don't see often enough
to justify leaving in the name of homework.
Yet I am leaving, all the same.
I drive, alone on a backwoods highway,
and my friend is not there;
but then, neither is the axe murderer,
and that is something to be thankful for.
I drive, and feel a silent guilt
for my idle thoughts of a recently used whetstone
and a hard-breathing man in a hockey mask,
hunched over beneath a railroad track,
waiting for the sounds of four pairs of feet
and deciding, upon only hearing six,
that the number is good enough for tonight.
The car thrums, and I finally exhale,
at last again within reach of city lights.
-10/10/2006
My car thrums in the dead of night,
carrying me home from the nameless countryside.
Ten minutes ago I dropped off a friend,
gave him to the care of another car
which tramped off into the darkness
of dusty gravelroads and empty fields of grass.
We were going to the railroad tracks,
following the trail of some girl he likes-
She seems alright, but then, I don't know her.
We missed five turns before I heard the call
of my unfinished homework, the ten-thirty midterm
and informed my friend that I was calling it a night.
So here I am, car thrumming, alone,
mildly expecting an axe murderer,
the glint of his freshly sharpened blade
flashing in my headlights.
It never occurs to me that I am going so fast
that he would die on impact long before
he could sink that honed edge into my forehead;
phantom axe murderers are like that.
I think of my friend-
a friend who I love,
and who I somewhat resent,
and who I don't see often enough
to justify leaving in the name of homework.
Yet I am leaving, all the same.
I drive, alone on a backwoods highway,
and my friend is not there;
but then, neither is the axe murderer,
and that is something to be thankful for.
I drive, and feel a silent guilt
for my idle thoughts of a recently used whetstone
and a hard-breathing man in a hockey mask,
hunched over beneath a railroad track,
waiting for the sounds of four pairs of feet
and deciding, upon only hearing six,
that the number is good enough for tonight.
The car thrums, and I finally exhale,
at last again within reach of city lights.
-10/10/2006