Because everyone else is boring and because you're different

Not one inch is ever given
a nod, a sign
a hint
No smiles
no flirtations
No long deep stares
or short ones
when caught looking

It's cold outside today
cold and drizzling
yesterday though
was much gloomier to me
all the way home
thinking about
how this
will end

ALWAYS ends
The red lights in front of me braked
and I thought about plowing right through
Saying
"Forget it"
This mortal life be damned
This freeway crawl is not for me

This freeway crawl is my timeline
a 20 mile stretch
elongated into 50 minute drive
You don't like me
I'd just as soon know it
than agonize along at 13 miles an hour
in complete silence
head in hand

While the afternoon radio DJ's
go on and on and on
about Zep and Mick Jagger

I realized the other day
my balance had been off for a while now
all the sound from one speaker
distorted and thin
and now hearing it through two ears
my stereo more appropriately lives up to its name

I am but a single speaker
making up for two
but I'm afraid
I'm so near tearing
it wouldn't matter if I was balanced out anymore

It's best to replace me
in that situation
a torn speaker is no speaker at all

There's not much else to say
but please,
say what's left anyway
I'd rather have hope dashed into nothingness
than ration myself on
barely there apparitions

I'm saying
let's take this thing right through the car in front of me
let the particles of glass impact my skin and eyes
shooting outward like an asteroid field
pockmarked and jagged
ripping me to blood spattered mess

let the crumple zones meet
and in them we will too

while air bags deploy and tires deflate
and everything goes
mute.







Anything is better than traffic.