The Roads That Doubled Back

 

In the husk of an old Outlander,

we tried to leave three times,

but only the second attempt stuck—

as if choice itself had grown slippery.

He drove—husband? Ex? Both.

His face flickered in the rearview like a memory I didn’t want to touch.

Our children were quiet in the back,

passengers to a journey that never decided where it was going.

My mother sat beside me,

tipsy on something deeper than wine,

her eyes a blistering red,

pupils coiled like serpents—watching, but not seeing.

The roads twisted toward food,

toward somewhere ordinary,

but I kept reaching inward

for an impossible detour: around town.

I needed to see if MY HUSBAND was there—

if he was with her.

The man beside me—husband? stranger? ghost of a life I didn’t want?—but once had unfortunately.

said no.

Again and again.

And somehow, that refusal

made everything bleed a little more real.

It was a dream made of wrong turns and right instincts.

A collision of what is,

what was,

and what I still fear may be...