I send this year off like a half-hearted prayer, like sheet lightning on distant cloud, like blood and whiskers down the drain. 2011 wasn’t so terrible, but she wasn’t so beautiful either - just another line in the bark, fading fast and soon to be forgotten.
I thought you should know that when midnight finally hit and all the world exploded with the shimmering golds and tracing yellows, there was nobody else I wanted to be kissing but you. Truth is, my dumb heart gasped at the moment, my hands clenched hard upon my coldly crossed arms because, dammit, they ought to be clenching hard upon you. But as everything fades back to merciful darkness, I know well the rhyme and the reason, and I know you’re starry eyed over another under similarly starry skies someplace far away. And so I let go, as I must, as the moment demands, as I should and should have long ago.
I’m bruised but blessed, hurting but hopeful - brighter skies ahead, right? Bigger and better, right? I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I’ll greet it with red-rimmed eyes, head and heart pounding alike.
I tip the bottle and bite the lime.