The Drive Back

The Drive Back

“I used to say to my classes that the ways to get insight are: to study infants; to study animals; to study primitive people; to be psychoanalyzed; to have a religious conversion and get over it; to have a psychotic episode and get over it; or to have a love affair with an old Russian.” -Margaret Mead

5 am on a two-way State Road

the sun not yet casting light on

what’s meant to be monochrome

black-and-Cremnitz white

cows lay against pastoral lands

of phthalo green

and shaded by Live Oaks

in a limiting state of mind

alive

protected

vibrant accessories

to a morning not yet come

grayscale

gray matter

the usual walk of shame is a drive

today

and I am cruisin’ it

that fallen trash bin

and are those tracks off-road mine from last night?

11 pm seems parallel to my present

it was spent blaring erotica audiobooks

getting away from myself

averse to my surroundings

then fucking you

and you tasted

mm

so bittersweet

‘a glass of wine to relax postnatal a few years ago

is different than drowning out your traumas with White Russians

now,’ you say

and I listen,

because what you say matters,

and has value,

and I’m struggling with my own

breakthroughs

against

breaking dawn--

although I think this is the best way to gain insight

and I think Margaret Mead would agree.