The bright lights were all flashing and green still meant Go,
And there’s a rhythm to the way we skipped the speed bumps
And weaved through the horror of the brake lights like we were dying:

I’ve seen this before, my friend Nicholas says with a nod. And there’s a look in his eye.
The tires miss the pavement as we come across a hill, when there should have been pause,
Where we approached the atmosphere and the lust for life could not be contained.

A second of clarity overcomes us in the altitude
(Perhaps not what was expected)
And the imminence of collapse makes an End appear sound.

We were right to see it coming, but Good God, he says. And I am terrified.
We return to concrete with an electric shock and a glimpse at the Almighty,
To the resounding clap of a renewed and ever-present Terror.

But even as we rally around the caution light and the green recedes indefinitely
While we wait at an ominous stop sign until the End of Time.
Of course we couldn’t resist the temptation to escape the avenue,

To chase the light we’ve been throwing out in front of ourselves,
(For what must have been our entire lives) all of this fear and euphoria, because we know.
I know that this will and must be another apparition to reach for in cold rooms,

Another dream to mourn in the wake of encroaching daylight.
I know I will grieve for this memory even before it becomes one,
If only to keep my fear (in its tender frame), above all, appeased.

And still, after every turn there comes the glow of the horizon.
After we’ve crossed, subdued, and subsided beneath every stoplight in history,
And the sea of stars has dissipated into a flame at the edge of the Earth,

There still comes a kaleidoscopic expanse the pitch of a fever,
A red we will pass and keep passing, through and throughout our lives –
We barrel on towards it: eyes wide in the flash, rendered and blinded.