Untitled Poem

With a few miles behind my tires
we tread on.
We’ve many more highways and bi-ways to travel.
The flashing lights signal me to slow down;
the speed limit signs entice me to go faster.
I watch the needle on the dash edge toward the red,
and I close my eyes and clasp my hands
and pray to avoid disaster.
The road signs teach me that these are the days
to make mistakes;
that these are the ways
to keep my soul awake;
that I am young and have the luxury of time.
But what is time when it’s wasted inside lonely cubicles
or with your nose hidden inside dusty books,
while your real desires gather dust in your mind’s crannies and nooks.
I drink cup after cup of coffee,
draining my veins of blood and injecting them with syringes of caffeine,
but that only works for the body,
and only until we become immune to the sleeplessness of in between.
So how do I keep my life from drifting off into a deep sleep?
We try to smile often; we rarely weep.
We figure that just one more heavy paycheck could get us through this week.
But our bodies grow restless and our minds become bleak,
windswept expanses of shadowy dreams.