ROAD TO NOWHERE

I forgot what silence was.

K-Pop blaring out of storefronts like vomit until the bars closed

And prostitutes shuttered for the night.

Replaced with screaming school children in the dawn of a concrete morning.

Red lights and screeching trains comingle in the meeting of lives.

Plane ride.

New life.

Living in limbo

waiting for a popped question

so the speedometer starts moving as fast

as I want it to.

The light has started blinking

It's time for an oil change,

a brake check.

The car needs to be able to merge on the freeway, not just take the back streets.

The car isn't built for it.

Gotta get a new one off the lot.

But the new car still smells fresh.

Doesn't have the soul of the one left behind for another to take.

The talking heads whisper quietly behind closed doors

when eyelids close.

Worse than yelling from the inner pit:

Disappointed, not angry.

Automatic pity. They've given up on you.

Sailor at sea so long I lost my land legs.

Drifting instead of rowing.

The whispers

pushing me toward what I think I should.

I listen at the door with a cup

taking notes.

Next day correcting my course

even though they hide the compass from me.

I hold my hand to the sun

This way could be right.

The car is now a boat

I am now Odysseus without the crew.

And the lonely whispers

take me to a Cyclops.

The cave is sealed.

There is no way out.

Every day I wait for the

Final Strike.

Bones cracked for my marrow.

Nothing left of me but my carcass

and the whispers.