One More Load

"One More Load" (2026) Lyrics by J. Widener with AI-assisted music Dispatcher called on Tuesday Said “Just one more load, you’re good” Two weeks turned into thirty-one days Like I knew it always would Joliet pickup Friday evening Houston Monday, 0630 sharp Eleven hours down through Oklahoma dark Just to sleep inside the yard She said your daughter’s birthday’s Saturday I said “Honey I know, I know.” The silence on the line said everything Neither one of us could fix it though One more load One more run One more reason To miss what I come from One more promise Coming apart One more Sunday Pulling out before it gets dark One more load Got home just before sunrise Boots hit the floor like a stranger’s name She looked at me like I’d been gone too long Like I forgot what home became I slept through half the afternoon Missed the candles, missed the song My little girl drew my truck in crooked lines And asked if I was coming home at all She blew out candles half-asleep Leaning into the kitchen chair My wife just stood there counting time Like it wasn’t really there One more load One more run One more reason To miss what I love One more promise Fraying thin One more Sunday Pulling out again One more load Saturday night at the kitchen table Coffee cold, no words to spend She said “I don’t know who I’m living with anymore” Like that was where it ends I wanted something clean to say Something that might still land true But the alarm was already set again And morning already knew She said “She asks me every morning When you’re coming back through the door” I said nothing worth remembering And I let the kitchen hum And I sat there doing numbers That never quite made sense A hundred miles of good intentions Don’t pay back what I left The company got my daylight The highway got my years And everything I thought I was building Got scattered between the gears I’m not a bad man, I don’t think But that don’t change what’s real A reason doesn’t fix what breaks Or soften what you feel There’s a line between survival And a life where you disappear And I crossed it so many mornings I stopped noticing it here Dispatcher don’t know her name Some nights I almost say it wrong But he’s the one who keeps me moving And I’m the one still gone One more load One more run One more reason To drift from where I’m from One more promise Driving alone One more Sunday I don’t make it home One more load Sunday evening in the driveway Engine idling, sky gone gray She stood there in the screen door light Like something fading away My daughter pressed her hand to glass No words, just small and still I held my hand against the window Like that could bridge the distance in it I pulled out slow into the street Past the house, past the light And the road just took me like it always does Without asking why One more load… One more run… Her hand against the glass… Her hand against the glass… One more load…