Asphalt Kiss
The road didn’t scream It only waited I remember the second before impact like a photograph burned into the retina metal twisting, tires skidding the world folding in on itself
The pain cam later, slow and precise a cold fire crawling through bone My ankle, a traitor refused the weight of my own body every step became a question I could not answer
Glass glittered like cruel confetti strewn across asphalt and skin the engine’s groan lingered a dying animal echoing in the cavity of memory
The street was indifferent it took nothing personally didn’t pause for me didn’t ask if I would live or how long I would bleed
I lay there, counting the moments like a mantra broken, bent, waiting every breath a negotiation between fear and stubbornness
Even now, the scar of the accident lingers in muscle and in mind a reminder that motion is fragile that life can fracture on a quiet curve of pavement
And I remember the silence afterward the hollow certainty that nothing would be the same that the world could tilt and leave me behind with only the echo of a crash and a bone that refused to be forgiven
