Respooling

I stabbed a pencil into the soft guts of a cassette.

The ribbon spilled from its shell,

a dark stream uncoiling in my lap.

I turned the pencil slowly,

feeling the weight of each loop

sliding back into its black mouth.

It’s something I do often—

this quiet act of respooling—

pulling the loose ends of myself

back into some workable shape.

The road begins simply enough:

one narrow lane,

a steady hum beneath the tires.

Then it blooms—

six lanes wide,

signs blurring past,

a snarl of headlights,

and somewhere inside the rush

my old mixtapes begin to play.

Each song is a person.

Each person, a stretch of road.

An ex doesn’t like being called a mixtape,

but what else can I say?

They are the tracks I carried for years—

some short and electric,

others slow as winter’s thaw.

By the end of the trip,

I am collecting fragments again,

pocketing pieces of cases

that no longer close.

Life keeps proving

the guardrails are shorter

than you think,

and the drop is always

closer than you expect.

Here I am again—

off track,

respooling old songs,

turning the pencil in small,

Deliberate circles.

But somewhere—

maybe in the quiet between tracks—

I hear my own voice,

younger,

less afraid,

recording a song no one’s heard yet.

So here I go,

into the static,

into the hiss,

letting the tape run forward

into something new.