Getting very 'into' my advanced creative writing class! I had to write a 'poem' that included the element of a road trip, a film, and a dream...For a girl in love with Shakespeare, Sonnets, and metered works this was a mess. So I just let my mind wander...and it expanded...and this is what came out...
Rusted Mirror
My family was horrified, always. Why couldn’t I stay put? I was enamored with the place; the flux of coming and going, like a cosmic exchange. Wanderer’s mostly. Eye contact is usually avoided, as are those wishing to engage in conversation. But a sizzling steak could be had and a hot shower for $3.00. I could wash my own clothes, just mine. It seemed warm, yet cold where it needed to be. Had I been wrong? I was off, this I knew. Not in mileage, but definitely time…and most likely gender. I had realized their fears one night. I had been up too late, gone too long. Those are the times the silence has its way with me. I hit the mat like fallen tree in the desert, my density gone from the sun taking all. I guess it was lucid? There was, I don’t know, an awareness? I drove a beat up late model resale into a filling station attached to a house. It was a place where the owners got stuck. Maybe they had made plans to move on, but that had been a few generations ago. Human scavengers at best. The raw creased girl motioned me to pull right up to the garage. There was an older pump at left. As I dug for my money, I barely noticed her motion to someone behind me; they were lost in the glare on my glass. All at once the lights went out, a closed sign flipped in the window. Vans had boxed me in. I heard swamp like laughter; they had hunted and caught me. Words began to scream in my head at my own stupidity, “No Waaayyyyyy! No Waaaayyyyy!” I had read about this, and heard about it at the last family BBQ. I chalked it up to urban legend, but goddamn, it really can happen. Somewhere I intrinsically understood it was a dream, and I grabbed it by the tail. In my in-between state my mind played with it; opening the door, smacking it against metal, being trapped. It faded as the skim milk light crept through my makeshift curtain. Time to get on the road. It was a dusty hot one already. I could do this out here. I could make a life. There isn’t anything out here except blessings and curses. I could make a stand, like the environmental film I saw. I could take it down to the bones, save humanity, become de-commodified. I could shit in a hole in the ground not to play anymore. I could set rattlers on fire, I mean I’d have to, how far is medical help anyway? I’d only have myself to deal with really.
