wreckage.

i drove past the aftermath of a car accident today. i saw us reflected in the shattered glass on the pavement. this is the most brutal representation of human impact; of moving too fast, of losing control, of crashing and burning and inevitably dying.

we are mangled guardrails and paint scrapes. we are scars, fractures, and mutilated landscapes. we are burning engines and a paramedic who arrives too late. we are the collage of blood spatter and naivety that others gawk with pity at. all examples of things going well until they’re not. we were halfway out of the sunroof at top speed, filling our lungs with each other and purging any poison with every exhale.

we were better. and happy. and whole. until suddenly our tires were facing the stars and the smoke filled every inch of space between us and the only word our mouths could manage was wrecked.

there is a gentle violence about these things: the vulnerability where the grass was ripped from its place and earth left bare, metal manipulated into sculpture, brushstrokes of rubber and the memory of it all.

how haunting it is to hear things fall so silent, to know that something was capable of turning ugly so quickly and now only exists in poetry, in hindsight.