I had to turn around because there was an ambulance and a flare blocking the road. I wasn’t going anywhere so turning around didn’t get me any farther away. I do this, drive around, because its movement.

My car had been broken, and I felt stagnant and sedentary until the transmission healed. I had driven it broken at low speeds until the stubbornness of my will bucked my car back into health before I would need to leave it behind. I fixed it by driving it closer to totality—I forced it to move.

And that night, I was out for motion, and accelerating past the fields and fences changes the way I think. I don’t soak in my thoughts—the things that sting move away from me; they blur with the gravel at the shoulder.

I go to go.

My dorm is a stew of the things I’m trying to establish. Books are stacked on the floor and across my shelves. Papers line the floor and what I keep of the domestics are folding and hanging in my closest. I have books book-marked with other books.

This is the evidence of my work, the objects of permanence. They are for the same reason people put exercise equipment in their living room—seeing an Ab-roller makes your fat seem that much more real. And I need things to seem real.

When Rolling Stone announced Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” was the number one song ever, Dylan told Ed Bradley, “Yeah, this week.” And it occurred to me that was exactly what the song said. It’s nothing because Dylan still doesn’t want nothing to lose.

I’m not Dylan.

I drive away and dismiss myself because the things I stack up around me feel more real than me. Definite pages bound perfectly—which leaves me a pretender when I write. Someone assuming the role long enough for it to come into existence, long enough so I can title it and call it me.

The gas-stations lights were off on the way back. The radio played the country music I always swear off but keep coming back to. The music makes me the kid I’m trying to abandon. I feel if I can keep things as they once were, then that’s safety.

It’s also the stagnant stew I soak in.

I go out knowing I’ll be turned back around by ambulances, or road signs that say I’m too far out—and then the fear that strikes when I realize most of what I am is stacked in a room.

These thoughts that are the burdens are the ones that nail me down. Then I move; I only orbit the things I want to be. I hope I can force those things into being, and the effort becomes my existence.

Just “this week” is just our whole lives. Anything we do is something we’ve already lost. To bear it, I try to keep in motion.

The bell rang as I opened the door. I looked back at the car as I walked away, still surprised it hasn’t given out yet. The elevator beeped on my way up and I walked down the hallway to my still and silent room. Then, I sit and try to write myself down. Like it’s the only way out.