Backseat Days

Vinyl cracked and scuffed, the back seat sighs

under my knees, pressed raw against the plastic.

Fingers trace the spiderwebbed lines—

tiny fault lines holding quiet rage.

Outside, the highway stretches flat and endless,

a ribbon unwinding beneath heavy clouds.

Inside, the thick air clings, humid and sour,

a gallery of silences staged between breath and glance.

I try to disappear in the smell of rubber and dust,

watching the trees slide past like tired ghosts,

while old arguments replay in the front seat,

hard and sharp as spilled soda on denim.

No one reaches back here,

only the hum of the engine,

a distant storm that never quite breaks.