2 AM and the Desert Doesn't Sleep

There's a version of you that only exists at 2 AM on an empty highway. The version that doesn't check mirrors because there's nothing behind you. The version that breathes slower. I found that version of myself last night somewhere on I-40 West, stars so thick overhead it looked like someone had kicked over a bucket of light.

The Road Glide's headlight cut a tunnel through the dark and everything outside that cone was just suggestion - the outline of mesas, the shadow of a guardrail, the occasional pair of eyes reflecting back from the shoulder. Coyote, probably. We acknowledged each other and moved on.

I've been thinking about why we do this. It's not the speed. It's not even the freedom, really. It's the silence between the engine notes. The pause at the top of a hill before gravity pulls you down the other side. The feeling that for a few hours, the world is exactly the size of your headlight beam and nothing else matters.

Pulled over at a rest stop and just sat on the seat for twenty minutes, helmet off, listening to the engine tick as it cooled. That's the real meditation. Forget your apps and your incense. Give me a cooling V-twin and a sky full of stars.