highway ghosts, r u there?

Katie Kay Chelena
Sep 8, 2018 · 2 min read
somewhere in new orleans, 2015

the cotton candy sky mirrored off lake pontchartrain
i strained my eyes, reminder: yes, yer still driving,
the reflection of the sun setting over new orleans like
siren song. hurtling on a bridge thru pink clouds:

the last whiskey-drenched optical illusion
for another 800 miles. we drove thru the night
til chapel hill rose like an oasis (surely, can’t be tru)
like if i threw a rock at the fraternity house,

the whole dang thing might shatter. did u kno
all things are breakable? a stone hit my windshield
in little rock & we laughed at that. the strike
started small and spread like a spider’s web.

when i got back to the mountaintop, mom asked me:
“how long did u drive with it broken like this?”
thru all the southland, i answered, from the coal chutes
to the desert places, to the bayou and the swamp

and back to the City upon a Hill where the streetlamps
were smashed (unrest when it ain’t Heaven for all).
did u kno a broken thing can still take u places?
did u kno a broken thing keeps going til it cain’t?

“there is a crack in everythang” a highway ghost sang
during one of those 5ams. “warning sign, warning sign,”
hollered another. “should have taken acid with u,”
sang a highway ghost holding my hand.

when i was on the medicine, my eyes always strained
(stay on the highway, cain’t drive on the illusion).
rain kickin up off tires were snakes on a black tundra
& every paved road glittered in the sunlight.

did u kno illusions are real even tho they break?
did u kno there was another road under lake
pontchartrain, another 15–501, another
wendover avenue, another west side highway

a parallel causeway where i’m still in the car
with u, and we r singing fleetwood mac
and REM and the road goes on and on and
on and on and we grow food in the car

and never have to leave / one highway ghost
told the story of the cup without a bottom.
u cain’t drink from it, u cain’t place it on the table,
u cain’t keep flowers or trinkets or whiskey inside.

did u kno endings give us meaning? did u kno
ghosts r real (even tho they never come back)

Katie Kay Chelena

Written by

southern poet + playmaker + neofuturist based in nyc // she/her

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