the brakes

when you've been to the edge
right to the edge

you can feel it forever

it sticks to you like the smell of smoke
exhilarating and endless
a pattern before shapes have meaning
a fever of sorts
a bookcase of thoughts
and feeling without feeling

do you have memories that hardly seem real?
I have hundreds
faded from history
a novel that was meant to be maybe
I never kept notes

we were beat after beat but before we knew what it could mean
we hit it hard maybe harder
and lived to believe in ourselves
without caring about tomorrow even once
not even once

the dark times were darkest
the bottom was it
a flame slowly dying in a cold barren street
and a time that needs writing
of a new kind of beat
that we felt but had nothing to reference
on the road to destruction and deference

a lump in the throat
no calls to home
a spatter of lies
but no sense of loss
not til now
and it bites even now