Seven A.M. Traffic | Teen Ink

Seven A.M. Traffic

July 23, 2022
By junepeers BRONZE, Panorama City, California
junepeers BRONZE, Panorama City, California
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I live too much inside my head

Thoughts stand at the foot of my bed, waltzing in and out of me

Fooling me until I am made aware of the demon from under my bed


I live too much inside my head

I become aware of my surroundings but later forget where I’m at

I gaze into a mirror but find no reflection

I dream endlessly until an alarm awakes me

Slumber, why can’t I exist inside of it?


I live too much inside my head

You see, I overwhelm myself with fantasies 

Which corrupts my view of reality

The only way to escape my delusional state of mind is by admitting its falsehood

I don’t think I’ll be ever able to

Unless I come to terms with the fact that my childhood has ceased


I live too much inside my head

Seemingly, I’m content, but that’s because what I imagine cannot be achieved

And what cannot be fulfilled is what I am after

You might say I’m a tortured actor in that sense:

My misery is in my loss of identity


I can’t contain it anymore

I live too much inside my head

I can’t explain it anymore

I wish to be a different person instead


One morning, I decided to exist beyond my head

Beyond what I could comprehend

And that’s when I came to the revelation: My only friend exists within my head


Seven A.M., my shaking hands on a steering wheel, barely driving steady

Deafening rock music blaring from my car stereo 

As I try deciphering the lyrics but find no deeper meaning

Windows unrolled so perhaps the frigid air can give me greater insight

Wake me up from this coma that I’m not sure how I got into


Reckless, I drive on the opposite side of traffic

Headlights so bright they blind me and I have no vision

Glass shattering into a multitude of pieces as there is a collision between multiple cars

Shouts from angry drivers petrify me so greatly

That their words become the incessant beat of a drum

A crescendo can be heard from the plethora of honking cars all facing in my direction

Nobody even questions what I’m doing out here alone


And my car, in the middle of this mayhem 

While blue and red twinkle through the endless stream of white and yellow


I should have driven down another highway instead

I live too much inside my head


The author's comments:

This piece can be interpreted both metaphorically and literally.  The speaker wants to freed from her thoughts and goes to extreme measures in order to gain that sense of liberation.  In the end, she realizes that she may have made the wrong choice, and perhaps, living in fear and being stuck with herself would have been the less painful option.


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