Rubbernecker

A collection of original poetry by Ty Le Roux, Rubbernecker is a reckless confessional drive through the guts of American decay, where poems rubberneck the wreckage of modern life and ask you to look closer, even when you shouldn’t. It’s tender, savage, and neon-lit — a poetic hit-and-run

Three is a crowd

but two is too few,

I’m part of the group so you’ll look right through.

An ancillary object with nothing to prove,

there’s no one around that I could behoove.

I’m part of the whole that falls by the way,

another rubbernecker with nothing to say.

Abiding with a knack for self preservation,

adrift in the whip of a soft serve nation

beset by a curse of pop culture stagnation, 

with homogenous lines and ornamentation.

They call themselves people but they’re just reflection

of bottomless nothing amplified through projection.

Defined by commercials while tent poles placate us, 

they’re sick at the top and the bottom’s contagious.

Every morning we wake we’re being courageous 

as we worship the things that have shaped and enslaved us.

I’ll consume anything to resist that I’ll die,

there’s nothing more precious than living a lie.

No ghosts linger on in the depths of the attic. 

No mysterious voice in the TV static.

No sympathy left for the apostate stigmatic.

I’m off on the shoulder with nothing to say,

another rubbernecker with my head turned away.

Make a humanoid wall to get away from it all

and leave in your place as you dive down the hall.

Closing up shop, holding breath in,

diving down further and further within 

til I’m deep in the woods, tucked squarely away,

another rubbernecker at the end of the day.