Running on Empty - Robert Phillips The reader suspects upon consuming the first six lines of the poem that the speaker was a typical rebellious teenager. One, his father was not eager for him to have the car, suggesting he wasn't dependable. Two, with the fuel gauge "dipping, dipping..." he was playing your basic "chicken" game (albeit with himself, rather than with another teenager). Teenagers hang out together, so it's a sign that he was a loner. Or, just plain reckless, which teenagers are, since they have little experience from which to learn real fear. And it's a universal given that teens...

Perhaps he failed at athletics, or at academics, or failed at love. Why? Perhaps because he desires to succeed at something hitherto undone: push harder on the pedal - and on his luck - than others would / could do. But suspicion of his teenage…