It’s a fine mess and I cannot leave it.
I tried running toward the water,

was bounced back by an invisible force,
Jedi, perhaps, hidden lines.

the bus speeds directly at its borders,
and collides with unseen walls,

not smashing to pieces, but
slowing it with increasingly even pressure

while the engine revs higher into the red.
Cars cannot help me escape, they form

barriers unto themselves. Somehow they know.
Straight up is no option, for authorities

would be quick to shoot up and seize
me. Then surely we would

be trapped here forever. So down I try,
in a sweated, feverish final go.

This too is fruitless, plotting at the
county’s edge, searching the horizon for helicopters

digging below the electrified fence at midnight,
tubers stuck beneath my ragged nails nod empathetically,

for they are bound by the soil that nourishes them,
and are no longer bothered with this way or that.