I’m trapped in my old sedan.
It’s like the Sicilian Bull,
the fires roasting me,
and in agony, I pound
the steering wheel
and press the horn,
though the hairpin bends
as sharp as scythes
stay deserted,
except for the hard rain,
the water like blood sluicing,
the wipers like metal claws
scraping the glass in desperation.
On either side, tea plantations
like incisions
on a masochist’s wrist haunt.
The mist envelopes like white pus,
and I can’t see the dying light
circumscribed by
the mutinous night
with her crescent moon—
her war horn with
symbols of anarchy.
A hooded man
passes like the reaper in flesh.
My shrieks echo,
and the car burns the wet asphalt,
leaving tire marks
like another layer of infection
on a gangrenous wound.
My headlights
clamp the air
like crocodile shears,
tearing its appendages
of oxygen and nitrogen.
The fume from my exhaust pipe
settles on crushed,
empty paper cups
like acid poured on
a battered, torture victim’s face.
I ascend,
yanked by some invisible force
like a mongrel tied
to the back of a motorcycle
and then dragged across
winding curve
after winding curve
because it bit the driver.
Fate is the driver,
and I am the dog.
I should have never rebelled.
I should have never
played with his dice,
tossed it like a
chewed off mutton bone.
The car has a few dents
like keloids that eventually form
if one keeps itching scabs.
It’s running low on fuel
like a terminally ill patient
in the ICU losing his life-force.
The tires pass over a thin trunk
with spindly branches
like a spine yanked out
with thoracic nerves attached.
I don’t see it, and it pierces one
like a rusty nail impales a big toe.
The air fizzles out
like the entrails
of a sacrificed goat.
A loud pop like a gunshot
to the head.
I lose control and spin.
The car careens
like bloody vomit
and smashes a signboard
saying 12/24.
Glass shatters
like bones cracking
when stepped on
by football studs.
My head hits the dashboard
like a plate thrown,
smashing into a wall.
I gradually drift in and out
of consciousness
like a man after a snake bites him.
Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash
Ordinary Person 
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