Even Now

 I went for a ride today. Behind the wheel of my car. It's the only place, these days, where I feel safe. Where I feel free. 

 

I drove down the pike past the prison, past the village, and into the town where I passed you and kept on going, leaving my heart behind me.

 

On the way back, I turned on the radio and heard the Blue Notes singing If You Don’t Know Me by Now and I thought about him, about how I thought I knew him, and how I once loved him with a love as deep as a river I would have dove into had I believed he felt that way, too. 

 

It must have been an Oldies station I was listening to because the next words I heard were Manilow’s Even Now, and my thoughts returned to you. “Even now when I come shinin’ through I swear I think of you, and God, I wish you knew...Even now when I never hear your name and the world has changed so much” - even now I think of you.