In this treatment,
I am Cameron Frye and my old man,
that’s me too,
I am the interminable clang against my skull,
making a charmed life a nightmare,
making an exquisite home a hellhole.
I am trying to evade consequences of freedom.
It is so dirty and so frightening,
I recoil.
Freedom dings
and puts miles on the odometer.
Crud on the chrome.

The air breathes coolly around me,
the trees arch closer, trying to get a whiff of the new creature—

In this particular take,
I am trying, I am trying to protect my old life
—the  Ferrari, I mean—
my precious old life, hanging like a jewel against
the green prison of my unhappiness.
We have reached an end.
My loved ones around me, I have knocked it,
this old beauty, like a tooth.
It is loosened. And when I am not looking,
just by speaking, just by breathing,
I push it out.
Crashing into the woods it goes,
its irrevocable parts smoking and strewn
across the forest floor.
I smile, blood leaking down my chin.

Natalie Korman is a poet and writer. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Heliotropics(dancing girl press, 2017). Her poetry has also appeared in 99 Pine Street, Echoes, and Quarto, among others. An alumna of Barnard College, she was the 2012 first-place winner of the college’s Prescott Prize for Prose Writing.