Highway Smoke

The air is thick and cool with ice
And brimming with a silence as loud as the screams in the violent nights.
"What is it you want?" I want to cry in despair,
But the quiet hangs as heavy as the thickest of smoke in the highway air.
The words on the tip of my tongue I could scrawl
On a piece of paper hundreds of feet long;
The thought of it looms over me, casting a shadow the size of a skyscraper's,
And I shrivel and simper
For I've never been a brave soul,
Not one you could call a lion,
Nor even a feline of small.
I can hardly move with the air
As thick and leaden and as viscous as a pot of sauce left boiling unawares;
Still, the quiet hangs as heavy as the thickest of smoke in the highway air.