yesterday
while driving
and laughing and talking with my love
and giggling at the girls behind us who were
reading my bumper stickers and laughing too.

yesterday
while driving
in the mirth and joy and peace
i saw, for a moment, a thing
that killed that glow, and made me pause.

yesterday
while driving
i swerved slightly on the road, love.
i don't know if you noticed. but i was
avoiding hitting a thing.

yesterday
while driving,
i swerved as not to hit...
a headless baby doll lying
there, lost there, in the road.

yesterday
while driving
i stopped and briefly paused.
this sobered me a bit, and made me sad.
this doll there...

it's a thing made to bring joy and comfort and laughs and cuddles.
but its time for that is over now.
even dead things live in their own ways.
but this one was dead now even unto itself.

no more mirth and joy and peace
would this small lifeless bit of plastic bring to anyone, now.

and i felt guilty for a moment.
like i'd stolen these emotions
and taken them unto myself
and it was i who left the doll there dead
as i drove off with its life

yesterday.

while driving.