The road drops here

Just as the world tilts forward,
the air forgets its balance.
Streetlights bend at the waist,
their glow sliding off the pavement
like water from glass.


The pavement doesn’t crack,
but it remembers how.
A single leaf spins midair,
undecided.
The sky leans in,
as if to whisper
what comes next.

My hands rest on the wheel,
but the wheel is already dreaming,
already leaning into the curve
I can’t yet see.

Behind me, the map burns faintly,
ink dissolving into smoke.
Ahead, the road narrows
to a thread of shadow,
a line that waits for the weight of me
to break.

I taste metal in the air,
a signal,
a warning,
but no sign remains to tell me
whether this is ending
or beginning.

I feel the shift
before I see it—
the way gravity
gathers its breath
and the world
tips its hand.

And in that moment,
just before the brake releases,
I know:

This is the turn
I won’t return from.
This is the drop
that names me.