The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
My heart empty
My trust gone

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
The doctors and nurses maxed out
Can life still go on?

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
The morgues and mortuaries over-spilling
In the City of Angels and lost souls

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
I wear two masks, a smile and one of cloth
Life must go on

The hospitals full
The ambulances all gone
As ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three
Happy new year?

In the City of Angels and lost souls
The hospitals are full
The ambulances all gone
as we ring in a "new" year and life must go on

The hospitals remain full
The ambulances still gone
as one, two, three, four, five, six friend and family we bury
as living death still stalks on

The moonbow reminds me
that everything comes full circle
this New Year's Eve

The moonbow reminds me
that even in the obscurity of night
there are flecks of color

The moonbow reminds me
that even in the fog and haze
there is light to be treasured

The moonbow reminds me
that all things wax and wane
as time passes so slowly, so quickly

The moonbow reminds me
to show my truest colors
in an ink-dark world

The moonbow reminds me
I must choose to see its light
this New Year's Eve

There is nothing so trepidating
as the emptiness

The blank canvas
the ghost-white page
the empty stage

There is nothing so trepidating
as the silence

Just looking
eye to eye, heart to heart,
for connection

There is nothing so liberating
as the void

the vast white desert of the canvas
the glaring blank of a page
the unadorned blackbox theater

There is nothing so liberating
as the silence

Just the rhythm
of  beating hearts
breathing

There is
nothing

There is nothing
so trepidating

There is nothing
so liberating

My feet were too big
so the glass slipper wouldn't fit

I hated housework
so no band of merry dwarves

I had frequent nightmares
so no peaceful sleep interrupted by a chaste kiss

I liked my hair short
so no prince tugging at my hair

Words, too often, hurt
and I am a bigger beast than any man I've met

No tiara for me
I will settle for a sword

No hero for me
I will be my own hero

No fairy dust for me
I will conjure up my own

I am not the black sheep
I am not the odd duck

I am not the rebel child
I am not the prodigal daughter

Who am I then?
Well...that's a complicated question

I am not your archetypes or storylines
I am not your bad decisions or projections, your should-s

I am
I am what I will be

I am the technicolor, intergalactic unicorn
I am the pearlescent being of divine light

I am the Angel of Death of Dead Tradition
I am the she-Moses getting out of a desert of lies

I am
I am what I will be

Today, I am choosing
today, I am choosing to create me in lieu of inheriting "me"

Choosing well
choosing better

Choosing wiser
choosing more joyfully

Today, I am the randy interstellar unicorn
blazing a neon rainbow trail forward

We were startled by the rain
we weren't used to it
the pit pat, pit pat, pit pat

We were startled by the rain
such a long drought
pit, pit, pit, pat, pat

We were startled by the distant thunder
we had been shaken by quakes
but no thunder, not in months, perhaps a year

We were startled by the lightning
its white flash sparking fear and awe
zipping through the sky

Pit, pit, pat, pat, pat
Pit, pit, pat, pat, pat
Flashes and shakes

We are startled by the rain
we aren't used to it
the pit pat, pit, pat, pit pat

All customers are required to wear a mask
except
Steve, Yuri, Pablo, Kevin, John, Roy, Bill

All customers are required to wear a mask
except
Mary, Irina, Maria, Karen, Joyce, Tasha, Jill

All customers are required to wear a mask
except
my cousin, my uncle, my grandma, my dad, me, all our dears

All customers are required to wear a mask
except
those we deem immune from our fears

All customers are required to wear a mask
except
when it's inconvenient and uncomfortable to confront others

All customers are required to wear a mask
except
when we're too busy burying our mothers and brothers