Some roads have thoughts. They remember us. Our choices are pressed into their surface like faint scars —
each corner holding the weight of what could have been. Every return is a negotiation between memory and motion.
I know this stretch too well. Its lip-like curves smile every mile, but there’s bite behind them. Once, on a curve, I chose between control of the wheel and the hunger in my hands. I grazed the guardrail, creasing my steel, walking the edge of the reservoir on two wheels. Empty road, no witnesses — except the road itself.
Sometimes, if I listen closely enough,
beneath the hum of tires I hear it whisper, “I did not take you.”
And later, another bend, a sharper descent,
where I once thought the deer would come…“Not yet.”
Even in daylight, I feel them — the unmarked graves of moments-that-didn’t-happen, stitched into each shoulder, each seam of asphalt. Every ride is a crossing back through chance, a wager made quietly.
And always, beneath wheel and wind, the faintest undertow: “I keep the record.”
Whether witness or judge, I cannot tell. But something waits here, layered beneath the years, beneath the asphalt, holding memory tighter than I ever could.
A Work Progressing 
The Conscious Road
Some roads have thoughts. They remember us. Our choices are pressed into their surface like faint scars —
each corner holding the weight of what could have been. Every return is a negotiation between memory and motion.
I know this stretch too well. Its lip-like curves smile every mile, but there’s bite behind them. Once, on a curve, I chose between control of the wheel and the hunger in my hands. I grazed the guardrail, creasing my steel, walking the edge of the reservoir on two wheels. Empty road, no witnesses — except the road itself.
Sometimes, if I listen closely enough,
beneath the hum of tires I hear it whisper, “I did not take you.”
And later, another bend, a sharper descent,
where I once thought the deer would come…“Not yet.”
Even in daylight, I feel them — the unmarked graves of moments-that-didn’t-happen, stitched into each shoulder, each seam of asphalt. Every ride is a crossing back through chance, a wager made quietly.
And always, beneath wheel and wind, the faintest undertow: “I keep the record.”
Whether witness or judge, I cannot tell. But something waits here, layered beneath the years, beneath the asphalt, holding memory tighter than I ever could.
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