Driving the Dark Highway

Sometimes I commute at night. Thirty minutes to the bigger town, thirty minutes to class, thirty minutes in the dark with me and my headlights.

My life has always been lighthearted, flippant. In the dark, I can't help but feel an urge to let my hands softly guide me into the trees that sweep my cheeks with silent whispers. If only I could determine how it would end, like the light being taken from a candle. The strong air and the noise of the road calls me to calmness and impulsive self-indulgence. A steady curve could take me flying like a roller coaster. That wonderful feeling that you get when you take off in an airplane, the sour sweetness of your stomach dropping to the floor of the elevator as it quickly falls to your next stop. But surely no.

I won't go so easy. Even though my heart desires the cold rushing over my cheeks as I slip into swift nothingness, stubborn is what I know myself to be. A mangled frame: spitting, coughing, and resistant as it always has been, keeps me steady on the road.