DRIVE

....throttle down....darkness ahead....

The engine turns over like a held breath finally released.

…destination…no, hell… not even a fucking plan. Just the road unspooling into the dark, a thin ribbon of asphalt pulling me away from everything that keeps clawing at my head. The city lights fade in the rearview mirror, shrinking into something harmless. The radio stays off. Silence is louder than any song tonight.

The pipes hum. A steady, hypnotic sound. Mile after mile, it scrubs the noise off my thoughts. The arguments. The expectations. The old ghosts that love to talk when you’re standing still.

Windows cracked. Cold air pours in, sharp and honest. It smells like pine and rain and wet asphalt. My knuckles loosen on the wheel. My shoulders drop, n for the first time all day, my jaw unclenches.

Out here, there’s no one asking anything of me. Just my headlights cutting a tunnel through the dark and the simple math of forward motion. Gas. Turn. Breathe.

Somewhere between one empty stretch and the next, I disappear a little…. and in that disappearance, I find something I so desperately needed…. the absence of weight.

So…I drive until the world feels right again…until I remember who I am supposed to be…when the world’s not watching.