the car seat next to me sits bare
in untouched space in the form of glass molded to the curves of the car,
an unoccupied lair;
silence echoes through the stillness of the ride going home, or nowhere i can be found
there’s no laughter, no chatter, no company to see
just the hum of the engine,
the sound of the road,
a commute in routine
sheltered by a piece of steal wanting to kill me
the moment i drive off this cliff and into a tree
metal beasts ascend, piercing the sky
marveling as the wings stretch high
pointing towards the world below, a mere abstraction,
constructed from reduced fields of data,
digitally deducting
the engines hum,
a techno-rhythmic beat with no rhythm, no rhyme,
as they propel forward in a futuristic fury,
passengers’ faces lit by screens, glazed over,
connected but alone in a frenzied maze
the sky painted over,
as an ethereal frontier with no end in sight
a space to simulate,
an atmosphere to engineer,
an artificial world,
as diesel thickens and explodes in a tragic way that wasn’t foreseen
Fred Aiken Writing 