Long Road (trippin’ with no one but myself)

Similar, at least in form, to "Chill out." Another prose poem.

There's a bumpy road, and I walk the fuzzy line between the road and the dirt. And if you were here, you’d be staggering too. Sure is hot out. I can see my textured reflection in mirage up ahead, or that might be a car �" don’t get close. It’s like something my grandpa's told me for years, “don’t be a dumbshit.” His voice in my head makes me laugh. 

I stick out my thumb when there’s no one around, thinking about a couple of grooves I remember. One’s a funky song that matches the bass-mid-treble of my heartbeat every time I listen, and the other is the traffic downtown, skittering, bumping, honking, and swooshing beside me. 

But there’s another, a voice that I knew and loved. An old friend with a voice that moved and rang over everything, whose card I got it seems by accident, “Happy birthday, love, Alex.” I still have it tucked in my back pocket. Every time I’m down it helps me come to my senses. It helps me keep hitching and bumming along the road toward him. 

Love is like a thunder cloud that rumbles awhile, but still passes to let the sun shine.