Remember 2012? Here are some thoughts on the dawn of that year:
Why can’t it always be January 1st between midnight and 1:00 am? That convivial hour when everyone on the subway is smiling and talking to everyone else on the subway, when no one cares if you are twelve years old or fat or black or a cop or from Jersey, when you’re still happy drunk and not nappy drunk, when the parts of the night that you’ll regret when you wake up haven’t happened yet, when you still smell good, when people say “Happy New Year” and actually mean it, when the guy sitting next to you is your temporary best bud even though you don’t and will never know his name, when you think that maybe the world isn’t such a shitty place after all. Why can’t it just always be like that?
Ian Gabriel
i stumbled to a party that was thrown by some good friends but then
my body and my brain were on two sides of one deep end so then i
wait, but then i, wait, i think the ball is dropping soon but every time
i pick my face up it goes zoom, ba-boom, ba-boom remember
new year’s with our parents, um, not really, but I’m sure
that it was wholesome and relaxing and just simply fucking pure but those are
gone like kids and tv shows we’d love to see again but we’re so
guilty, our nostalgia is a chore and not our friend and so I’m
drinking and I’m drinking and I’m trying to get drunk and i’ve
succeeded i’ve succeeded i’m still breathing and I want to say
I really love you guys i think we’ll stay great friends forever or at
least until we move on and have ties we have to sever so for
now lets ditch our modesty and toast to our rebirth another
cycle like the water that makes more than half the earth and if I
sometimes seem impatient or unsteady or untrue its only my
dumb way of coping with the miracle of you and you and you
there’s nothing harder than escaping and transcending but if
anyone is close its us and maybe years are never-ending they’re just
scared to keep on going and they tell us that they are so we make
new ones and abandon those who think they’ve gone too far but we can
visit them like grandma at a nice retirement home when we are
alien and angsty and guilt-ridden and alone and next year
you’ll still be in college, i’ll be face-down on the ground but i’ll make
sure that you’re aware for the next time that i’m around so we can
talk about our lives and all we’ve lost and gained and gone through i swear
every time we talk again i know deep down you’re on to something
beautiful and strange and maybe that is all that matters that no
matter how the years go by we’re all still both mad as hatters.
and no matter what my psyche says i think that i might love you
it’s not much but it’s a start and what else can you ask of me
i bet you can ask me anything and i’ll be forced to try it
like a mudslide to the mountain or a river to the sea.
Michael Schwab
I think my bed in New Brunswick has fleas. New Years Eve morning, I wake up half-covered in tiny, pink sores.
I must go home. I will sleep in this bed no longer.
Besides New Brunswick has been barren lately. Walking these streets, I picture myself as a spaceman walking the surface of a dystopian colony on the surface of the moon.
The loneliness of New Brunswick is driving me mad. I return to my hometown.
I watch the Twilight Zone. I eat a fabulous dinner with my family…but it isn’t enough. I need to return to New Brunswick for my last NYE.
At 11 p.m., I drive back to New Brunswick and every traffic light is green on Route 1. This has never happened before. I make record speed.
The city is repopulated with loud, boozy bodies. It is now 11:37 p.m., and I can’t stop at The Hub to pick up the necessary alcohol I require to bring in the New Year. The line is too big and the ball’s going to drop!
I’m at the party and I realize how sober I am. I’ve brought a beer over from my house, but it isn’t enough. I’m too sober. A drunken vegan murmurs something under his breath as we chat. I think he is talking about my leather jacket. Can I usher in New Years with an ass-kicking?
The ball drops and it’s 2012. I need beer or something. I prowl the streets and drop by parties.
At one of the parties, someone divulged their life story to me. It’s a Cuban tale of rebellion, cheating, and vengeance. As he speaks, I wonder if he actually knows me. Perhaps we have met before and the ball is in my court? I have forgotten names and faces before. He maybe looks familiar. However, my mind returns to the moons face. Who are these people? Is there a sober body in New Brunswick? I’ve made poor tactical decisions this night. It can’t be saved.
When the beers digest, I will return home.
At 5 a.m. I return to my car. No one is on the road and New Brunswick is barren again. I’m in a lunar rover…
Anon
New Year’s Resolutions: Go to more shows and for the love of God, don’t move out of the house with those condoms.
In order for sex to be fulfilling, does your vagina have to be filled? Yeah, I think so.
But at least there were no Cheez Balls at the party and Dave said something really funny I’m pretty sure.
So I’ve been thinking maybe Pat Sajack was right when he said forks are only broken spoons.
LP
I am family-vacation drunk, meaning I’m the only one and it’s a secret.”I really identify with fireworks on New Years Eve,” I hear myself say. No one responds. Retrospectively I assume they were stifling laughter. Oh god oh god oh god am I crying? Hold it together, hold it together, hold it together.
At 12:10 I find myself at the edge of a pool. My dad’s girlfriend asks me something and I ignore it because I am feeling saucy. I am family-vacation drunk and I am jumping in. I am entering the womb. I am underwater in a soundless world and even when I hold my breath time passes through me. I am family-vacation drunk and it’s 2012 and I feel sublime because I am the serpent eating itself alive. At first I mourn 2011, then I celebrate its death, then the distinction dissolves like sugar in water and I am in love. I am family-vacation drunk and I am an island dog holwing at the moon. I yell for my brother and for his lighter.
I am family-vacation drunk and I’ve been reading The Power of Myth and I am at the shores of the unconscious after a few shots of tequila.
Happy new year from the Caribbean!
Sally Reisch