what we learn.

Drove home,

with a banshee at my side,

a loaded gun in the back seat,

and the smell of fire and oil in the air.

The creature in the passenger seat

wails about nothing in particular.

I tell her,

“We’re on the road to Bethlehem, baby.”

She thinks it’s a place to start over.

I know it’s nothing

more than a trailer park

on the outskirts of civilization

with well manicured lawns.

The road cuts ancient lands

that hold the spirits of dinosaurs and Indians, 

paved over swamps,

and bottled up water ways

with the window down it smells like rot

and decay after the rain has fallen.    

History is melting under the tar of 18” wheels.

The sun is cooling behind me,

she refuses to acknowledge its existence;

afraid that it could take her with it,

I tell her it’s a matter of survival, 

no one will miss the man who stumbled across

the great American highway.

Tumbling onto the hood of my car,

breaking him into tiny pieces of blood and bone.

She is not one

to face her own mortal consequences.

I have never been the type

to admit my own faults and un-doings.

What is done is done

and we’re all better off for it.

Driving home, 

a sleeping woman at my side,

a forgotten monster in the back seat.

     

I must remember 

never to look in a mirror again.