New Year's Eve has been ponderous for me every year now for the past few. I think last year I spent it inside, listening to the din of my neighbor's blasting crackers in the street. I don't think I even went out. Year before, made it down to Hawthorne only to be too stoned to enjoy the craziness of it all. I walked home in the cold rain around 11:45 pm, only hearing the celebratory car horns just as I reached Stark St. Then there was the first year that I'd decided not to go too big, as it were, and spend the evening walking around the city with my love. Nobody else wanted to hear that and the pressure to do something grew until I ran away and spent the evening wandering the streets of the lower Haight for hours, profoundly sad and alone.
Rivulets
the snow caved to the wet deluge pouring from my coat
around me hoards of revelers milled
in dark masses against the silver night snow
like marauding invaders they bellowed
delirious in the New Year
their happiness unbridled
unaware
some ask me to flip the switch off
everybody has problems they say
don't be a drag they mean
motionless in the snow
the rain slapped against my parka
and burned the crystals below me and to my side
the tip of hair next to my ear felt like ice
while the rivulets pooled and froze
somewhere out of sight
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