Such a Goddamn Hurry
poetry by Chelyen Davis
It’s not that I didn’t have a bit of badass in me when I was that age or at least badass wannabe I mean every boy does every boy wants to show off to his friends wants to prove that he can be daring be a rebel be a devil not listen to his mama not listen to the rules just break them all that’s what we expect boys to do at least that is what my own mother said when she caught me smoking behind the house or saw me trying to look tough gunning dad’s station wagon in town when all she’d told me to do was drive carefully to the IGA to get milk which for a 16 year old felt like an enormous amount of freedom and adventure and at that age all you want to do is to fly to be free to rev the engine and feel it roar and feel the rumble under your ass in the seat and under your feet in the floorboards with the wheel listening to nothing but your hands slinging it around the curves in the road flying up a mountain to sit on top of the world and look out at the hills rolling away like waves taking every curve too fast your feet pushing that machine to fly when you’re 16 nothing goes fast enough everything is in the future and you are just in such a goddamn hurry to get there and it feels like it takes forever but I can tell you now that it didn’t take forever it only took a second gone so fast the blink of an eye sixteen in the rearview mirror fading behind you your old self standing left behind in the road because the car keeps going faster and faster even when you no longer want the roar and the rumble under your ass and when you no longer want your foot pushing it all forward you want to hit that brake but brother this car doesn’t even have one
