A couple hours from now, as we are toasting a farewell to a neoteric past, a new year will emerge from the ashes of 2017. Like a phoenix, it will rise again, and sing sweet songs of new beginnings and manifest hope for a better year. We wait for this day in anticipation praying the months to follow will be anything but a repetition of a life once lived. We convince ourselves that we will be more productive, that we will be more active, and that THIS is the year that will change our lives. So we set New Years resolutions, we mark our calendars with exciting new adventures, we establish new goals and reimagine our old dreams hoping that in this new year, we can accomplish them all. But, for many eager and willing people, months will go by without any true transformation. And as the year draws closer to its end, they are again transfixed by old habits and excuses. Their excitement and determination will have faded into the mundanity of reality setting them back to where they were before. For a new year can’t be the driving force for change. A new year shouldn’t be the starting point for innovation. Because refinement shouldn’t be pushed to a certain date and time. And if someone really wants to revolutionize their life, why wait?

Turn off the music,
stop that constant doing.
Look it in its bloodied teeth:
This broke us.
This was far too much.
We don't know how to be a person after this.
We can't even seem
to comb our hair.

All we have now
are all these pieces.
We kneel in the shards,
and feel the remnants cut,
and wail about our scarred images
and cancelled plans.

We don't know what to do
when we're shattered,
but maybe if we can just
feel this breaking,
without lusting for
the once-****** whole,
we can grow quiet enough
to hear the laughter:

for the neighbor kids
have already begun
stringing our pieces
into bracelets that say Love.

An old man is scattering
our fragments in the park.
People delight
as the pigeons descend.

A salesman peddles our scraps
door to door,  and makes enough
to finally pay the bill
that turns the lights back on.

A tailor makes a sweater
of our mistakes, while a baker
turns our heartbreaks into bread
for a different kind of breaking.

Come to the window,
these new friends call.
See what our brokenness has become.
Our pieces are raining from the sky
and quenching this parched earth.
People are dancing  in the streets.

Close your eyes and listen
to the laughter and the rainfall
of what our pieces teach.

A statue in the middle of the blue space,
With no windows on all four walls,
Downcasted eyes on its pretty face,
Tears streaming down from it like waterfall,
Made out of marbles cold like winter's kiss,
Begging me to keep it warm,
Stuck in this chilling dawn as time freezes,
Yet its diamond encrusted chest might make me succumb,
To its every desire.

I woke up with you next to me,
I'm hugging you tight,
Unsure if I've set you free,
Yet your smile had turned bright,
Your tears halted its stream,
Your eyes starts to beam,
I feel the statue crumbling to dust,
Except the heart that is made of what's 'neath Earth's crust.

I'll carve a better sculpture for you,
Where it'll never turn blue,
And hope will shine bright through its eyes,
The mouth will no longer have to speak comforting lies,
Its hand will grip tight and close,
A bouquet of dark red rose,
That I'll give everyday.

The Earth has run another race round her star
The Two Thousand and Seventeenth year (give or take)
Since the Creator drew breath in history
And now the manuscript is bound, it is sealed
Soon to be sent to the Printer

The Editor-in-Chief does not delegate this task
He leafs through the pages Himself
Though newly-bound, they are not white and fine
There is no fresh crispness, the binding is broken
They are musty already with age, and not only age

It is as if they had been soaked in a tea of human filth
A quarter of it printed in red, blood is cheaper than ink
A quarter of it stained with jaundice, sweat is cheaper than ink
A quarter of it wrinkled illegible, tears are cheaper than ink
A quarter of it, alas! - dreams are cheaper than ink

The Editor reads on, impassive, unfazed
He has long been familiar with Adam’s work
This sequel follows well upon its parent
Consistent in a thousand fires and slaughters
Consistent in a thousand lies and eruptions

Every chapter is headed with a dedication:
“For Death, the only mother I’ve ever loved”
In the foreword the author declared himself immortal
In the afterword he declared mortality an illusion
But the body was an essay on how much he dreaded his demise

Adam sat, nervous, across from the Editor’s desk
He had worked so ******* this
And yet it seemed to write itself
This was his life’s work
Though he never seemed to call the shots

The year Opinion Popular declared secession from the union
And Reality Objective became a Prisoner of War
And we resold our birthright for whatever was on the menu
The old had questions that nobody questioned
And the young had answers that nobody answered

And the Editor looked at Adam with tears in His eyes
And Adam asked if his draft would be published
And the Editor said that there was no alternative
And Adam asked, “What next, then?”
And the Editor told Him, with a sad smile

He told Adam to start work without delay
To begin immediately the next sequel
Because he only had a year before the deadline
And no extensions whatsoever would be granted
And Adam got up to leave, to write -

“But before you go -

“Look here, look close, you may have to squint
But look what you’ve scribbled here, in the margins
Read the footnotes very carefully
And every word in parentheses
And all these that you’ve bracketed”

There is hope scribbled in the margins
And they loved in the footnotes
They were embracing inbetween parentheses
Some of those sobs were even tears of joy
And in the brackets, O, what he had bracketed!

He had bracketed all those who labored to rebuild
The bridge-builders, the peace-makers
The dream-builders, the light-seekers
The school-builders, the truth-teachers
The home-builders, the wound-healers

He had bracketed numberless beautiful births
He had bracketed charity of mother and father
He had bracketed heroic sacrifice, all selfless
Men and women who loved family and country and God
Far more than they loved themselves

“Let’s make this the focus of the next edition.”