ode to a road trip

you dusty straight line of crushed rock and glistening white lines.

you sexy beast.

you ask nothing of me.

i just have to stay in the lines.

scan the horizon.

set the cruise control.

it’s the only time i can cruise control my life and it still takes me somewhere.

it’s the only time i can let go and be free.

free of senseless requests, duplicitous conversations and free- range egos.

free of the suffocating stench of other’s fear and loathing.

you gorgeous, glistening heap of pressed sand and rock.

you take me to wide open spaces where my mind can run wild and look so pretty.

but wait. what’s this?

a beguiling county road paved with nothing but dust.

i know you go somewhere.

somewhere is perfect.

an old man in a gigantic brown cowboy hat driving a brown cadillac el dorado with a tiny pomeranian in his lap tips his hat and grins as he passes me in a plume of dust.

he knows where he’s going.

i toss back my head.

laugh with abandon

and watch the sun the sink into the sea ahead of me.