Car Confessional.

We called it the car confessional.

A ’99 maroon Taurus,

paint chipped, three times totaled,

but inside—

it was our cathedral.

Parking lots under buzzing lights,

driveways slick with midnight dew,

windows fogged by our breath,

not from scandal—

but from spilling the kinds of truths

that couldn’t be said anywhere else.

Because in that cabin,

with soft cloth seats worn from years of use

and the dashboard glowing faint green,

we were absolved.

We were holy.

We were kids

trying to make sense of everything

with nothing but the safety of steel doors

and the silence between songs on the radio.

We talked about crushes

like the world depended on who texted back first.

We mapped out futures

on fast-food napkins and half-broken dreams.

We swore we’d never be like our parents,

swore we’d never lose touch,

swore we’d always remember nights like these.

Sometimes we laughed until the seats shook,

sometimes we cried

like the fabric could soak up the weight of it all,

and sometimes we sat in silence,

staring at the night sky through a windshield

that needed cleaning,

thinking silence said more

than words ever could. 

And isn’t it strange—

that four doors and a busted tape deck

could hold more truth

than church pews or classrooms ever did?

That headlights sweeping across the lot

felt like confessions caught in stained glass,

and every “you’ll be okay”

was its own kind of gospel?

Years later,

the stories blur,

the secrets slip away,

but the feeling remains—

that none of us were alone.

That we were seen.

That somewhere between the static of the radio

and the hum of the streetlight,

we mattered.

The Taurus is long gone now,

but sometimes,

passing a car parked under a flickering bulb at midnight,

shadows laughing in the passenger seat appear again.

Echoes of us—

the whole crew,

back when the world was wide open

and every conversation felt like

a key turning in the lock of forever.

And maybe holiness was never in stained glass.

Maybe it was always

in the late-night parking lots,

in the cloth seats of a maroon Taurus,

in the car confessionals

where we learned how to tell the truth.