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.