Covered Bridge

My mind was racing too fast for my body

To keep up so I raced with my car

After all driving is nothing more than a

Feeling and I raced past the road with my house on it

Because I feared had I gone home I wouldn’t

Have recognized it and it would have sucked

Me in, unfinished, and never let me return.

Darkness obscures time and it made sense that

Lydia might not answer given it was almost

Midnight but she did even though

She didn’t want to jump off the ledge with me

As I had thought she might.

She showed more concern than I wanted

From her because sometimes she knows me better

Than I know me but the night itself wasn’t

Real so I didn’t have to be real either and

I drove on.

She talked me out of the ledge but I knew

A nice spot under the covered bridge so I parked

My car in the deeper shadows climbed over the safety

Rail and fumbled down a steep hill I was

A little unsteady standing on one leg wiggling

Out of my pants making as little noise

As possible I placed my clothes and my keys and

My phone with 1 unread text from Lydia

Under a tree that leaned out over the water more

Than the other trees so that I could find it again and

I dissolved into the water

At first just ankle deep and then all at once.

On a night when I’m so out of touch

With reality anything is possible like flying and weightlessness

And letting a physical substance like water be a solution

To intangible problems for at least a few moments in a row.

My arms were wings and my legs were fins and my brain was

Wide open and under the moonlight as bright as

Streetlamps I could soar and dive and exist in

All the worlds at once.

And once I had drowned enough of myself

To think less clearly I left it behind and

Made my way back up the hill with my belongings

And sat naked in my car silently ducking my head

At headlights so they wouldn’t think I was crazy

And I texted Lydia so she wouldn’t think

And I made my way home in a car that is just

Metal my mother never asked me why my

Hair was wet so I went to sleep

And it dried.