strike anywhere

There is no more waiting in parking lots, sharing cigarettes with your ghost. The asphalt took some salt and saliva that I’ll never get back; pieces of me left behind like decaying bread crumbs dropped in case I found myself somewhere far away. It’s a pentagram, a sacred circle, or just a pile of garbage waiting for a gust strong enough to shift into another parking space. This was hallowed, wasted, beautiful earth that has been flattened and pressed and turned into a cemetery for bad ideas. Aquamarine stories and deep shoulder sighs meet long stares and solemn tones; it’s pretense and pretend, it’s real and relevant, it’s hurt-or-feel-nothing ultimatums that lay scattered across the white stripes keeping everything contained and organized. When your foot presses the accelerator, when my hand shifts metal into gear, the ground feels smooth and natural beneath the tires, physically effortless but mentally it’s Atlas shifting the world an inch to the right so his shoulder can breathe. I know the asphalt is an illusion; I know if those tires were replaced with my knees they would slowly drag and rip, cartilage cracking and tendon snapping with my two thousand pound metal cage pressing down to meet every crack and crevice, every steamroller signature carving into weak flesh. There is no more waiting in parking lots; there are loitering ghosts that never have a fucking lighter when all I need is a box of matches and your phone number on the side that says “Strike Anywhere”.