A List Poem for a Quiet Drive Home

1. Prepare the stars or the early morning dusk to match your dashboard lights.
2. Ignore the radio dials and their connection to outside noise.
3. Drive, and treat each turn of the steering wheel as a footstep.
4. Do not stop and pick up your ghosts.  Even if you see them stranded on the side of the road.  Even if you drive by their house/their favorite restaurant/their tombstone.
5. Do not drive past your anniversary graveyards.
6. Do keep your mind blank, so the calm can fill your head.
7. Do not let your thoughts chatter and disrupt the calm.
8. Do not give your thoughts the voices of all your bullies and exes.
9. Do not replay each goodbye over and over, until it loops like a bad soundtrack of arguments.  Remember step two.
10. Remember step three, so you don’t drive around and around to catch up with your spirits.
11. Remember step four, because you will see their smile when you drive closer, and you will want to pull them back in to haunt your bones.
12. Keep tissues to collect the memories, because we all are haunted neighborhoods.

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