Guiliana Datnoff

How we ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop.

Sometimes,

the things meant to save us

are the very ones that kill.

Our irrelevant bodies

violently lurch forward, then back

as a seatbelt keeps us safely trapped

amid the flames of a burning vehicle

whose tires we assumed would spin forever.

We no longer need the radio music

when our heads are pounding.

We trust until we shatter

because if our saviors desire to break us,

we want to be utterly broken.

How we ride and ride,

the greatest threat to our existence

is ourselves.

What a terrifying comfort

to be able to regulate the dangerousness

of predicted storms, banned weapons, and tamed fires

or merely be unable to control our own.

How powerful

yet powerless we must be

to crack holes in rock bottom.