Just Before the Brake Gives

There is a sound the earth makes

right before it tells the truth.

You don’t hear it—you feel it

in the teeth of your pocket watch,

in the way the gravel goes still

like it’s listening for hoofbeats.

I was standing at the edge of the hill

where the pines lean westward like old men remembering

and something shifted—

not the wind,

not the light,

but the tilt.

You know it when it comes.

It’s the breath before the rope goes slack.

The heartbeat when the door unlatches itself.

The moment your name feels too small

for what you’ve just become.

I didn’t run.

Didn’t step, either.

The road leaned toward me

like a question with no teeth in its mouth.

And I—

I smiled back with both hands open.

The barn behind me sagged

the way memory does when it forgives.

Even the vultures circled slower,

like they’d mistaken me for something

not quite dead,

not quite gone,

but rising.

It was nothing.

And it was everything.

One stone rolled.

The sky didn’t blink.

But my breath caught

like a foal tasting thunder

and knowing it means run.

So I did.

No plan. No promise.

Only that hush in my ribs,

the kind that says

the ground will catch you

if you just

lean

hard

enough.