I Thought About You

It’s snowing now, just like it was on this day three years ago. I slid through a stop sign on my way to work and I thought about you. I thought about the roads and how deceiving they can be. I thought about how we drive our cars every single day… we turn on the radio, adjust our mirrors, turn on our heated seats… it’s routine. We don’t consider that we might be buckling into the spot where we would take our last breath though, do we? I thought about that today but mostly, I thought about you. I thought about you getting into the Chevy Impala that you took to school so often. I thought about you buckling your seatbelt, assuming it would keep you safe. I thought about the toolbox in your back seat. You put it there without a second thought. Anyone would have done the same thing. The roads were slicker than they looked – we know that now. You were 17 but your hands looked like a grown man’s. I thought about your knuckles. Were they white, wrapped around the wheel when you slipped into that curve? The toolbox. I thought about the toolbox again. Did it stay closed when it flew towards the back of your head? Did you feel it coming? Do I want to know? I thought about your hands again. And my hands. Do we ever look at our hands and wonder what they will hold for eternity? We put a LEGO man in yours. Do you know that? I thought about him, too. You used to play with him when we were kids. I thought you’d maybe like to hold him forever. I often think about your masculine, eternally 17-year-old hands, now holding onto your childhood toy in the dark.

I thought about the roads, the Chevy Impala, your fastened seatbelt, that toolbox, that damned, fucking toolbox, your hands, that LEGO man…

I thought about you today, but then again, I think about you all the time.