I-35

You are so sexy -
like I-35 all the way to Austin,
don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop
’cause I wanna go all the way
with you, with . . .
You are neon orange cinder drifting up
from a lonely late night campfire
while I watch and wonder if
you’ll go cold in the sky over my head,
or
come down hot nearby,
becoming wild grass fire all ’round my acre.
You are aching, dark, angry,
messing with me,
puzzling me, then scattering the pieces
in a temper tantrum tango.
I am a shattered vase and
You are angry at the pieces and
I am a tongue done been sliced and
You are made like that knife on midnight TV -
slices through clean - nothing sticks to it.
I feel like shit -
a dirty earthy substance.
You forget but I remember -
I am real.
Really wretched, wrecked, writhing.
Hitting rock bottom
and ready to bale,
gathering up scraps of my shredded dignity
to cover me
as I exit disgracefully . . .

and that’s when you apologize.

Some people drink to distraction.
Others use crack.
I . . .
am addicted to HOPE,
and you deal it on every corner I try to turn,
every alleyway I stagger down.
You are at the tollbooth of every bridge I try to burn,
so that instead of torching it like I should,
I build a heart out of wood.
I burn it for you,
thinking you’re burning for me, too.
Those smoke signals that I think I see
are really dark angry clouds hanging on the horizon.
But hell with all that.
I like it when you run your finger down my spine,
trace my skeletal structure,
build a schematic layout of my body
so that you can throw switches I didn’t know I had.
Drive me crazy through the night
just like a stolen car,
no regard,
but the music is up loud - so it’s all good.
You are like I-35 all the way to Austin
and I am southbound.
It’s my turn to drive and
I am drinking YOU and HOPE
like they’re both going out of style.
All the while your storm is moving in.
We cling, we kiss,
we paint promises and poems with our tongues,
try to become one,
but too fast and foolish,
slicing through the night,
not watching for storm clouds or prairie fires
or those predatory flocks of tornadoes
that seem to hunt only us.
We are fire and road trips,
racing to 4-alarm memories,
not just breaking the speed limit,
but breaking the sound barrier.
That’s why you can’t hear me crying.
We are vulnerable, flammable,
so awkwardly entwined,
you and I are braided,
dipped in kerosene, tequila and gunpowder -
Ignited.

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