scraping against the road. our tire has just 

            split open and we’re high off oil fumes

 

and your dad’s weed. we toss a can of coke 

in the back seat and wait to hit a street sign. swerving

 

off the highway, you whisper in my ear this should

            be how we die.              with burning and digging

 

my nails into the steering wheel. watching trucks

            horn past us. leaking gas and wandering            through rush

 

hour. red lights shouldn’t exist and neither 

should yellow. green can stay but only in chlorophyll—

 

i just wish everything wasn’t so goddamn bright

all the time. falling from blooming, from almost

 

becoming. we crushed soda cans over state lines

            and waited for everything else to shatter with it.

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Kaydance Rice is a writer from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Ice Lolly Review, voicemail poems, The Interlochen Review and Full Mood Magazine.