No one warns you

about the hazards of school drop-off:

the way you think you know where you’re going,

just a short hop from here to there,

but the world is always changing and you can 

find yourself somewhere unrecognizable

just beyond your own front door.

The detours often start with a question—

            What does a heart attack feel like?

            Are you and Dad going to get a divorce?

            Do you think you’ll be scared when you die?

It’s the unforeseen interruption

                        (at a traffic light

                        a drive-through window

                        sitting in the pickup line, awaiting big sister)

of one’s own thoughts, or some small passenger’s,

that breaks through the crust of ice you skate through your days upon

–the errands, the memories, idle fantasies, things to-do—

and punches a hole big enough for you

to fall through.

No one prepares you for the hazards of school drop-off,

the way the backseat is precisely far enough

                        (in space, and time)

for monumental questions to form, 

and otherwise unmentionable truths

to emerge.

But over time you learn 

to trust them more than you fear them.

You find a way

to hold your breath until you learn to swim,

to let yourself look at the unspeakable thing, answer

the unknowable question.

There’s safety in the space between front seat and back;

whatever is spoken there can’t hurt you.

You come to love the way the drop-off keeps you sharp,

keeps you on your toes,

shows you things you didn’t know about yourself,

your small passengers,

the world through which you all move.

The unforeseen becomes your friend:

another tool in your mother’s toolkit,

their weight and heft familiar in your hands.

No one tells you, the problem with school drop-off

Is that the skills don’t transfer. 

You think you know this landscape, 

but the screaming voices and the blaring whistles,

the battering rams breaking down doors

raise a different kind of question—

                        What are we doing?

                        How did we get here?

                        What kind of person do I want to be?

Then the safety of the front seat makes you cocky;

makes you believe

            (like they do)

that you have superpowers—

that you can answer any question,

solve any problem,

heal any wound,

simply because of who you are to them.

That your sweet smile,

and your lilting voice

                        That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you

will be enough to overcome whatever this is,

                        Get out of the fucking car

to keep you skating, keep you breathing.

But you are nothing to these people;

your magic has no power here,

so the ice breaks, 

                        crackcrackcrack

punches a hole,

                        Fucking bitch

and you fall.