It's when you're alone, locked up tight as slow poison in a convenient pill, the semis schooling like hammerheads, the rain heavy, heavy; even with the ac on you can't breathe; maybe it's the rain, maybe it's the proximity of all those people who don't know you exist – unless they're calling you names, to them you're five minutes of fury and then you're forgotten, and you'll never know that either – one of them could kill you like you killed that doe, (blackeyed sloetoed and dead dead) dead, so that even today, three months later, your heart skips every time a rabbit scurries along the sidewalk or a streetlight goes out or the cd misses a beat, every time you’re icecold, and you won't sleep for hours: not that you could anyway, the drive is endless, it's hours of street, hours, and this is when you can tell the roads aren't open like they used to be, they're empty now; a difference you couldn't explain and can't help but feel.

(tanis c. clark)