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I am driving faster than I should, pressing harder on the gas than I should, I should I should I should be silent and soft, I should keep these lips pressed quietly together these fingers wrapped tight around the steering wheel. I am veering off course, please, don’t stay silent, please, say something.

I am running over skeletons, spilling wine and I am plotting a course that looks nothing like the map and nothing like where we’re meant to be. Tell me, why do you get to be the serious one? All melancholy and abruptly ended conversations, I am tired, so weary, tired of trying to break your silence with my songs when you never sing along. Do you hear this silence speak? The road comes rushing up around me, swallows all of the things I’ve never loved and shows me the underbelly of the best, the glowing bones of the worst.

In California, I could run forever. The engine would gulp the mountains, the miles, and it would take days to reach the other ocean. North, south, I could hit the corners of the world. This island is small, so small, and I feel like I echo too loudly, fill too many lines, say too many words, ask too much. And all of our silences are awkward, all of our words the wrong ones.

I give my hopes too easily—that was the question you didn’t ask: my faults. When you are sad I want to fix it. When I am sad, I know I simply must ride it out. I am driving faster than I should, and it won’t be you that I call, when the engine fails and I am stuck at a truck stop, eating cherry pie and waiting for a ride.