3:17

Midnight on the dashboard clock,

Engine humming in an empty parking lot,

Rain hitting hard against the glass,

I tell myself this feeling will pass.

Streetlights stain the road gold,

Everything looks distant, cold,

I drive with nowhere left to be,

Just trying to outrun what’s underneath me.

There’s smoke trapped inside my hoodie sleeves,

Songs too loud so I don’t think,

And every red light feels too long

When you hate being alone with your thoughts.

Midnight and I’m still driving,

Trying to feel alive instead of surviving,

White lines blur beneath the tires,

City glowing like it’s on fire.

48 past midnight and I can’t slow down,

The whole world sleeping while I drown,

So I keep moving through the night

Like motion means I’ll be alright.

one twenty six, empty petrol station,

Neon signs and sleep deprivation,

Cashier barely looks my way

As I buy things I don’t even need.

Cold air cuts through the silence now,

My reflection looks worn down,

Dark eyes staring back at me

Like someone I used to be.

I pass the bridge near the river bend,

Think about stopping there again,

But my hands tighten on the wheel

Like I’m scared of what I’d feel.

one twenty seven, and I’m still driving,

Headlights shaking with my breathing,

3 minutes past 2 and the roads turn black,

Like the dark is staring back.

41 minutes past 2 and I feel sick,

Every memory hitting too quick,

So I press harder on the gas

Trying to outrun my past.

three seventeen

Silence fills the car so suddenly

It feels violent.

And it all hits me at once.

The scars.

The pills.

The screaming matches.

The nights I swore I wouldn’t survive.

Every version of myself

Sitting beside me in the passenger seat.

Eleven years old crying on the bathroom floor.

Sixteen and too numb to care if I lived.

Seventeen swallowing pills I hated.

And now eighteen,

Hands shaking so hard

I have to pull the car over.

three seventeen and I stop driving,

Finally feel everything I’ve been hiding,

Cold air flooding through the open door,

Heart beating harder than before.

52 past 3 and I’m still breathing,

Dawn light slowly breaking in,

And maybe healing looks like this—

Not fixing pain, but sitting with it.

11 past 4 and the sky turns gold,

For the first time the night lets go,

So I turn the car around slow…

And finally drive home.

midnight feels different now.

Not the end of a day—

The start of one.