This is what I’d say
If we were speaking

If cellos played ambrosial
If those who said they were alone actually knew what alone meant
This is what I’d say
To the ancestors with sepia faces
To the full family tables I could never navigate
The empty drive, unfilled road, the lack of fake
I’d say
I can’t do pretense

Or big events
broken pipes
yellow light

Or changing people

False words
Mislaid purpose

I would say I couldn’t get on with you
We fought like siblings
Though both were singletons
The vibration of only children with no children
I would say I became angry when you lied
When you faked who you were
When you got suckered by people stupider than you
When you lived in your pretend world
Whilst I ate and feasted on blisters
I would say those from wealth and those from basalt cannot understand

The empire
Of emptiness

A track road with lisping night creatures
And desert burning into mirage
I would say it seems at times
Futile to try to get close

to anyone

But I felt serried to you
That’s likely why I got so churlish
Why I stopped talking

Said nothing

Because betrayal comes unconsciously for most of us
In the voluble let downs and unseen affronts
Like a storm threatening, then retreating

Electricity in verging air
Reminding us of bigger purpose

Points of tangency and points of equilibrium

The hour until we ease into contiguous dying
The way you assumed I’d believe what you believed
I never did
I carry a heart with wormholes in it
The rain lets out
You get out
I drive on
In the mirror of oil on the road
I see you understand

I would say we were the same
Not even at different ends
Just burning with curved impulses

That quench the other
As I look in your eyes

I see myself

And it hurts and unsettles me

Worse than my own reflection

16 Replies to “Highway 101”

  1. Too different to be the same
    Too the same to be different
    Contradiction?
    Paradox
    Disorienting
    Unnerving into silence
    An accusing mirror
    Glimpsed in the rear view

  2. I’m so glad you read this. I wrote it thinking of two things. Your writing and this film with Francis McDormand called Nomadland. If you are able to watch it, you MUST you will see why.

  3. Have you seen Nomadland with Francis McDormand yet? If you have not, irrespective of whether you are a TV/Movie fan or not, I urge you strongly to see it. You can get it via HULU if you don’t visit your cinema because of Covid. It is without doubt the most important film of the year possibly more. I really want you to see it. You will see why. I wrote this after that. In a way it has nothing to do with it. In a way it does. Nobody should live in their car.
    Do let me know what you think if you see it.

  4. I haven’t seen it, but from what I’ve heard of it, I can see how it can both have and not have to do with the poem. I agree that nobody should live in their car, and especially not by choice, but so many do, and are much rendered invisible by it. I’ll see about seeing it. Thanks for the recommendation.

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