Before the Drop

The world tilts — I know it by the way my hands remember the wheel.

Not the map, not the reasons, just the skin: ridged, honest, held.

—

Miles behind me are pockets of light and unpaid bills,

a laugh that stopped mid-air, the coffee cup still warm in the sink.

I count them like coins and find I am empty.

—

The curve narrows; the sign blinks a metal hymn.

Inside, a small voice says stay, then another says go —

they trade places like restless children.

—

My foot rests on the pedal like an unspoken vow.

Chest tight as a fist, throat full of the names I won't call back.

I feel the weight of a life folded into the passenger seat:

a jacket, a photograph, a receipt with someone else's handwriting.

—

Gravity leans first. I lean after it.

Not brave—just honest: fear braided with something that might be courage.

The air tastes like a goodbye and like rain.

—

For a moment the world stops at the hinge of the hill,

and I hold that silence like a medicine.

Then I let the brake glide away.

—

We fall forward together — car, horizon, the small bright ache inside my ribs.

It is the only thing I can trust: the forward, inevitability as mercy.

Once the road takes me, I am stripped down to what I will become.