it seemed to appear overnight, a gaping hole in the middle of my street
every day i ride up and down this stretch of asphalt, coasting the hills, sweating the climb
several weeks ago the climb became different, i narrowly dodged a pothole that wasn't there the day before
in my daily repeat of this content and familiar ride, i now dodge this divot, still not entirely used to it's place on my path 
it has almost caught me a few times, a quick drop that would lead to scraped knees and yelling for my mother
today it looks bigger, i picture the day where it gapes big enough to swallow me whole, i shake my head and convince myself it is the same as yesterday

when i settle in for the night i think of my pothole, trying to picture how it came to be, what forces widened it and what processes weathered it, i wonder what's below it, gargantuan caverns of eroding rock just waiting to swallow me and my bike and my street too, maybe just pipes and roots and buried trinkets from kids who played on this road before it was a road, riding their bikes up and down packed dirt and gravel. 

i don't expect the pothole to fill on its own, i doubt the city will do it 
though maybe they will bandage over it when company comes over and pretend like it was never a problem 
until then this pothole is my problem, my sickness, my pain 
mine to complain about 
mine to narrowly avoid every day 
until one day my tire catches and I fall
me and my pothole