The signals were flashing red on empty streets
but you drove straight through the intersection
without even pausing
It was obvious that you couldn't drive well
yet I wasn't frightened, or even annoyed.
I said "It's funny about the things in our lives
that give us pain, we never know
whether it's better to just forget them
or continue thinking about them until we
can't think any more."
You looked directly at me for a moment,
with your huge brown eyes
so similar to my own,
and said "I know exactly what you mean"
but you were only pretending to know,
and it was too late to turn the car around
and return to the place where we had started;
you would have to continue driving
until we both ran out of fuel.

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Leah Mueller lives in Aurora, IL. This poem, like many others, was inspired by heartbreak, and George Bernard Shaw's observation that "the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."