Just as the World Tilts Forward

Just as the World Tilts Forward

The air holds its breath

trees lean with a weight they did not carry yesterday

a single bird lifts and vanishes into the pale stretch of sky

the silence is not silence

it is the hum before a storm

the hush before a word too heavy to unsay

The road narrows ahead

its skin of stone gleaming like a secret

I drive where the edge begins to slip sliding,

the ground is not steady beneath my car.

yet my chest knows the shift

my chest says forward is already chosen

I do not move it’s too late

still the tilt pulls me to the edge and down.

a pull so soft it could be mistaken for wind

so sharp it cuts the thought of no turning back

I taste metal on the tongue of morning

I taste the promise of no return

The horizon bends its spine

light slides down like water from a tilted glass

and in that spill of brightness

I know I will not hold the brake much longer

the world has leaned me past refusal

and I am caught in the instant before falling

This is the end of my road.

just as the world tilts forward so does my car.