Asphalt Psalm

Punk Noir March submission for “Find What You Love and Let It Kill You.”

Bed, a pit stop on oblivion’s highway. Any cold slab where consciousness merely sputters before grinding back to life. The road bleeds into an endless smear of neon and concrete, stage lights a cold memory, applause a phantom limb. This isn’t travel; it’s an erosion. Of self. Home? A faded Polaroid. Stability? A gilded cage of predictability. Connection? Dead air on any frequency quickly forgotten. Those ‘enduring’ things? Museum relics—dusty, demanding a stillness that chokes. Patience is for the settled. Hope? A cheap roadside attraction.

No.

What calls is the raw scrape of strings on blistered fingers. The tinnitus whine—my faithful, deafening ghost. The motel room? A damp chapel of transience. Mildew prays on the walls. Exhaustion, my numb baptism. That hollow hanging feedback after the last chord fades? The only real communion. Bad reviews cut deeper than praise ever lifted—that sting is the only truth left. Model citizenry is elevator Muzak. Comfort, slow suffocation.

I crave the rupture: grinding gears at 3 AM outside nowhere, stale smoke deep in the van’s fabric like a second skin, the brutal anonymity of rest stops under sickly yellow lights. The bottle’s burn isn’t escape; it’s a votive candle lit to the god of acceleration. The next gig, the half-empty room, cracking voices immersed in dry ice … that’s the altar. This relentless motion, chewing miles and marrow… this is the devotion.

The road isn’t a mistress; she’s a succubus draining the light, and I offer my veins. Every breakdown is a cracked chalice. Every missed exit, a signpost. The music that once lifted? Just the engine’s rhythm carrying me towards the void. The asphalt dissolves the last pretense of belonging. The silence of a quiet life? The real terror.

The roar of wheels, the ache of strings, the terminal grind… that’s the only home. It’s the love that devours. Feed me to the blacktop. I’ll call it ‘home’ as the engine gasps its last amen. It’s how it’s gotta end.

It was always meant to be.