blurry night driving

Tonight I am drinking Sailor Jerry out of a Starbucks mug from the Twin Cities. Someone else has been collecting them. The mugs. I am sitting in the part of the countryside that belongs to a Delta pilot. Out by Ikea. I'm sitting on his front porch and watching his neighbor park their Ferrari into a garage as big as my house, but all I'm thinking is, what would have happened if I had kept driving til I ended up at your house instead.
The answer is nothing.
I'm not going to do this all and hope it works.
Because then what happens the next day?
Not the Nobel prize. Not for showing up at your door uninvited. Not the cure for cancer. Nothing good would happen. I'd get back in the car and drive home, unanswered.

The street goes back to black, except for a fullish moon, there, right on schedule. For better or for worse. I listen to the Front Runner humming on the tracks. Brakes. Humming. Freeway. Crickets. Country.

We could sail. If I showed up at your door. Somehow we'd sail away. Even if it was just laying on someone else's manicured lawn and talking about sailing away. I could still smell the ocean and listen to you breathing.

Oh no--wait--don't do this. Set down the mug, and listen to dogs barking a story to each other, faintly, everywhere. It will keep going. You will have to do this, and then one day it will be over suddenly. Like you had never
wept
at
all.