Gridlock Reflection

The taillights are a red river that won't flow.

I am sitting in the heat of my own breath,

watching the dashboard clock tick through the slow

creep of a day that feels like a small death.

I thought I left that conversation at the desk,

the way she looked when I couldn't say the name.

But here in the idling, it’s grotesque—

how the quiet brings the heat and the shame.

My knuckles are raw under the brake-light glow.

There’s nowhere to turn, no side street to take.

I’m just a man with nowhere left to go,

waiting for the line of steel to finally break.