there are bite marks all over my steering wheel.
i can’t control when or where it washes over me. 
mental checklist- i could swerve off the road. 
i could come to a dead stop. launched through
the windshield. i could drive into a wall. a tree.
some brief intensity. a desire for relief. for calm.

i’m worried that these things will keep happening 
forever. that i’ll always be fighting- baby see, baby
learn, baby take it to the grave, baby. when you gut
yourself on command, you have to clean up a lot
of your own messes. the engine humming, the
wheels skipping fragments on the asphalt. melting 
with the windows up, steam cooked, pink shrimp.