Tonight

The few people I pass by sitting in
their crumbling cars breathing warm
air into their hands, look at me and can
see that tonight is different.
I don’t look at my feet like I usually do,
and the energy surrounding me is akin to
the static in the wind after a lightning strike.
The street lights all work perfectly tonight, and
do not flicker against an empty sky, no, there
are stars above us and they are on our side.
I am never coming back here again, and
if I do it will be because I decide to and not
for anything else. I pass over the train tracks
stopping for a moment to look both ways
as far down out as I could. There is nothing out
there but trees, darkness, and wind. However,
when you’re looking at it it doesn’t feel that way.
It’s more like there’s something trying
to keep me where I am until a train comes and
tears me into nothing. That’s an old trick though,
that I’ve long since come to realize is nothing but
ancestral cognition.
Tonight we can choose to leave it all in the past,
and nullify the power we’ve given away since we
were born. Tonight I am holding her close in the
dark, and whispering ideas about doing something
stupid. She laughs and we decide to walk together
telling stories about our families and ourselves.
The road is cold and it turns in ways I can’t predict,
but tonight we are together, and that’s always been
enough to get us through.