Highways are supposed to let us get around local traffic, across town or to the next big city quickly. But anyone who has lived in Texas for more than a week knows that there’s one exception to the rule: Interstate 35. Locals who live along the highway itself avoid it on their daily commutes. Long-distance travelers will drive an extra two hours on backroads just to ensure they won’t have to use it. But sometimes you just have to, sometimes there’s no choice, sometimes you sigh and say, “Let’s try I-35.”
I-35
Oh holy hell
I mean really,
If there were a highway
To that place?
This
Would be it
Is it possible
That a road construction contract
Can really have a deadline
Of “eternity”?
Is it possible
That a highway can stretch across
This great big state
And still be bumper-to-bumper
At every
Single
Point?
They say the road to there
Is paved with good intentions
But I beg to differ ––
Because this stretch of pavement
With its intermittent concrete side slabes
With its never-ending “improvements”
This, oh this,
Is its own asphalt underworld
So let me add to that list ––
The only things certain
Are death, taxes,
And never
Ever
Take 35.
