7.18.23 // Asleep at the Wheel

I fell asleep at the wheel...
.
Listing and veering from anything that remotely resembled a road I wanted to be on.
.
The radio hummed with the solace of familiarity.
.
It wasn't intentional, but I grew comfortable in the driver's seat.
.
I grew comfortable with the feeling of the too-hot cracked beige leather against my back and thighs. A slow burn of misaligned understanding and false expectations.
.
I grew comfortable with my eyes on the horizon, looking forward but never really seeing. Occasionally stealing a glance in my rearview mirror, never recognizing the miles as they moved from in front of me and my future to my not-so-distant past.
.
I grew comfortable with the feeling of the steering wheel between my delicately scarred hands. The stitching unraveled at the seams under my right thumb. But even that comfort was an illusion of thinking I was in control of the wheel, of the car, of where I was going, and of myself.
.
I was asleep at the wheel.
.
Unwilling to wake from my catatonic state of comfort.