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Your hands grip the steering wheel and you let the stars write you poetry to distract you from the words
“used to”
that are draped around every bend,
but the poem sounds a hell of a lot like a love song that was never finished and suddenly the passenger seat feels a little more empty.
In every dimly-lit house that you pass, a version of yourself stands with her nose pressed to the glass:
You speed up in a desperate attempt to escape her
and her and her and her and her
but you are always in between two of them.
As your car hits seventy, you slam the brakes, sliding to a halt in the middle of a straightaway because you need it all to slow down.
You get out and look up at the stars.
They steal your breath in the form of a faint blue cloud,

or maybe it’s just cold.