Inertia, Redefined

Driving home alone late at night

is something of a religious experience.

It’s not something you’ll want to do often—

it’s like church that way—

but you realize that

sometimes we need loneliness

to find out we’re better off feeling

the togetherness we sometimes dread;

to find out that we need to keep going,

because if we stop, alone on this dark, empty Texas highway,

we’ll never get going again—

whether that’s because our shitty Cadillac doesn’t know when to start,

or of our own accord, doesn’t matter.

If you keep driving, though headed towards home,

you’ll find yourself in a field looking at the stars,

the hum of cicadas and wind caressing your ears

until you nearly fall asleep on the hood of your car.

Don’t fall asleep—you don’t want to miss the stars, blinking overhead and telling you

that you are loved.

You will begin to think about how fast you are moving

while you are stopped there, laying on your parked car,

pretending you aren’t contradicting half of this poem.

The earth spins and revolves around something else spinning and revolving,

we move millions of miles in a second,

and suddenly your head is spinning right along with it.

That is the moment you will find your god,

and she will hold your hand as you begin to understand

the colossal brevity for which you exist.

She will sing your name in the voice of cicadas.

She will slow the stars to prove she thinks you matter.

Drive home—

you will make it safely—

and sleep well

as the Universe rocks you to sleep

singing soft lullabies of cicadas and wind.