So 2011

I was going to say that none of us can afford
to lose any more people, but that is so 2011.

A New Year walks into a bar. Tells the bartender
that 2012 can take or leave anyone. Bartender says
Yeah, but you still want a drink, right?

2012 shrugs. Punchlines are so 2011.

2012′s bored swagger is the new-new black, the
new whatever’s still new but will soon grow
old. These words, so 2011. Poetry, you know,
as you say, is a car. Drive it off the lot, it’s
dead to you already—

or should be, for Christ’s sake—

have you read the stuff? Jesus.
Worse than aspartame, Sweet ‘n’ Low.
Diabetics and the chronically
fatigued steer clear of the shit.

No. The value is in the never having—

never wanting, if you can manage it.

Yearning is sloppy seconds, thirds, fourths.
Get a hold of yourself. Practice your fuck its
in the bathroom mirror. Don’t bother trying
to find the right words. No one else cares for
words, least of all 2012.

2012 is better than you and smug about it. 2012
needs nothing, wants nothing, couldn’t care less
about this or that or the other thing. Sex is sex.
Soul: figment of the imagination. Don’t even speak
to 2012 of the embarrassment called love.
That was your own doing and undoing. Buck up.
Bite down on a leather belt, a wallet, if you must.

Above all, shut your mouth. 2012 has plenty
to teach you, if you play by its rules. Hide
the hunger, drop the gun, leave birthday wishes
to the under-12 set and the uninitiated. 2012
waits for no one. In two days, you’ll be on
its payroll, like it or not. Punch in, punch
out. Repeat, 365 times. You’re on the clock,
along with everyone else. Boo fucking hoo.
At least you have a life to go to in the
morning. You’re not retired yet.

If you must scream, take it outside. The woods
will do, although that’s so 1990 of you. Pick
a tree, any tree. Dig your nails into peeling
bark. Let the tree do the grasping, for a while.
Cry. Get it all out. Then gloat like you mean it,
like a true child of 2012. The tree will never
touch that cloud, that maddening cloud. If it
grows for a century more, it will still never
touch all that blue. That’s something, at least,
something to think about, as you turn your back
on the tree and step coolly into your new life.

—for LLH