My phone keeps buzzing on the passenger seat,
Eager to yell at me for failing to show up.
The men at work, they never knew who I was,
Or that I won’t be coming back.

I woke up in some dark room
Full of trash, bottles, cigarette butts.
Dunno how I got there, whose bed it was.
Didn’t see a clock, couldn’t tell the time.
My head throbbed, my stomach burned.
Had to piss like a racehorse.
What did I swallow? Who did I fuck?
Who the hell was I?

My hands are trembling on the wheel,
My breath fogging the cold glass.
This rusting, sputtering wreck of a car
Always takes three turns to start.

A voicemail from my mother.
She got sober enough to recall
That “the Javernick girl” had called
Two or three years ago
To find out if I was alive.
Now I know where you are,
Or where you were the last time
You gave my mother your name.

I grabbed the guitar and ran
With nothing but the clothes on my back,
That stink of sweat and smoke and sex.
Left everything else behind.

Driving through the endless night.
The road’s empty, the sky black.
No stars, no moon, no signs.
Nothing but the white line.

A phantom smell of old gasoline
From the yard up the mountains.
On the porch next door to mine,
Your face, your fire hair, your milk eyes.

Locked in my room for a year,
Then vanished like a ghost.
You wanted to know if I was alive,
And I was already gone.

The sun comes up like a sore.
My skin’s clammy, my tongue thick.
I roll the window down,
Stick my head out into the wind.

Pull over at a gas station, fill the tank.
Beard’s a mess. Eyes bloodshot.
I need to wash, need to eat,
Need to sleep, but can’t stop.
Buy coffee, aspirin, cigarettes.
Clerk looks at me like I’m a threat.

My teeth hurt, my jaw clenches.
Bugs crawl under my skin.

I put a knife in Lorenzo’s neck.
Buried his body in the woods.
I told you he must have gone,
And you knew it was a lie.

Driving through flatlands, cornfields,
Under a sky too big to grasp.
No mountains, no trees, no landmarks.
Just road and road and endless road.

Car’s making a weird noise.
Smoke’s coming from the hood.
Heat rises, burns my face.
I don’t know how to fix this.

No one around.
No help in sight.
Just me and you,
And this guitar.

I used to be dead.
Now I know where you are.