The Ride

These hardened streets, gashed with serrated pot holes

Asperous asphalt

Soon to be softened and slippery

From fresh winter snows

I streak a sliver through the city’s congealed veins

Heart attack, clot, but numb to my own pain

Wash it white, tint-rose so colourful but still

I’m traveling here alone*

Unwanted passenger bleeds my brain

Driving me insane; a taxi I never called

ṻber ṻber alles; bike lane, pushed aside

pedal on, pedal on;

We’ve lost community to a phone

Reaching out, reaching into that empty space, that void in me

The invisible wall maps my ride and counts my steps

Drugged and dragged along by platitudes

But they make no bloody difference

No hope exuded in hollow eyed words,

Eye contact, topped with tar…black pupil-retinal mud makes the darkness blindingly bright

I need to travel off the common path

And not be led where these roads go

The grids with untimely ends and capricious curves…

The need of a flock to follow unneeded, and takes us

To the same places over and over again

What’s the point of life when

You feel dead?

“We find ourselves in the same old mess,

Singing drunken lullabies”

Simply stated, no simple solve

What’s prescribed seems to sicken me more than heal

Nothing is genuine; it’s no

Wonder we are lost to how we feel

I feel weak, I feel small and powerless

Set my compass, but stuck on the determined road

Salt stings the cuts and cracks and road rash

Black tar and asphalt stain my lungs and the acidic rain eats at my soul

The salt water streaming from my eyes;

An ocean, an eternity, but not rain

Briny bites the cuts and cracks and road rash- I do my own stunts

I want to ride my bike with you

Off the main drag, the beaten path that’s beat me down

Or a canoe:

To be flowing through the river’s blood

As it feeds the earth with natural wonder

Feeds my soul, makes me whole

Lessens the impact of my mental load

Erode my jagged edges and smooth me out

Skipping upon the waves like a water walker

Even though I know

The river’s flow will never cease

A tegument of ice may distort our passage-

To inhale your warm breath; exhale and dissipate like smoke into the ether

Of the endless dimensions of universe and soul;

See it blend and absorb into the greater whole

A contradiction to these pending winter winds

Winter is always warmer in a photograph or film

This film that coats my eyes and emotions

I want to spin this into a positive

Propel by my chain, not tethered

Away, the big yellow taxi,

I need you to ride with me.