It is a truth universally acknowledged that
we prefer beginnings to endings,
opening lines to famous last words;
and so we usher in the year with
bells and whistles; fireworks
obliterate the unforgotten, bury the
little piles of guilt, glinting with
the tears unshed by cold hearts
broken in anew each passing day;
we say, “happy”, as we turn our backs
and pretend it never happened,
nor will again; our faces shine
with the empty light of what has
yet to be.
And would you have us
turn again to the harrowed husks
of last year’s selves, and hand them
into the next new thing; or whisper
words of sweet release as we slough
them, dessicated, into the abyss?