death by MVA

There must have been 4 tons of car coming at you with a green light letting us through. Me in my Volkswagen, an old man in a Chevy, and a lady sliding off the highway in a Subaru. The time was 2pm, the city drenched by waves of heat. I saw you riding your bicycle slowly into the intersection ahead, and wondered would you stop? You kept pedaling with an icy stare into us, 3 lanes of traffic against your perpendicular. I'm not sure if you wanted to die, but you sure knew what you were doing. The physics, the mathematics of the equation, did not at all look promising yet you kept a steady pace, a mane of black hair falling behind your tan face. You looked maybe Latin or Native American, and ready to die by MVA. Why? Did you lose someone close to you? Were you socioeconomically starved? We all pressed into our brake pads, and the old man in the middle lane lay on his horn.

We were long gone when I wondered; were you laughing in the aftermath of an adrenaline rush? Or were you disappointed? Or had you gone on to Broadway, indifferent to us all, searching for cool water, a smoke, friends, and some shade.