New Year 

This poem was published in 2018.

You can listen to a performance of this piece by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

your car is the same familiar beat 
up red, the windows cranked all the way
down so you can chain smoke on the 405. 
you take me to that tiny bar off aurora, 
the one between the lake and the gun
shop. it's our secret – a piece of the city 
hidden in plain sight, with dark sour 
beers and a fireplace trickling warmth
in the center of things.

it's been too long. a year, maybe, 
since i've seen you. the last time was in 
new york – we made pizza at 2 a.m. and fell 
asleep with flour still on our hands. the bed 
was a disaster. after you left to catch your train, 
i spent the whole day washing the sheets and 
rolling your new music over my tongue.

it should have been the same this time, 
except, as soon as we sit down, you smile like 
the sun just hit you, and you tell me you're going to 
marry her.

you plow on, right over whatever you see 
on my face, and tell me that you know it's sudden, that 
you weren't sure about it for a long time but now, you think, 
you are sure, and this is it, this, this, this
is the right decision. you tell me you 
bought a ring.

it's small and lovely, you say. it’s exactly right for her.
you don’t show it to me.

it’s quiet between us for a moment. you play with 
your napkin and touch the rim of your glass and wait 
for whatever it is i have to say.

(i wonder if you're waiting 
for me to tell you not to do it, if your plan was
to get me here and have me shake this out of you.)

i smile. i grip your hand and say,
i am so happy for you. i am so happy that you’re happy. 
(i'm not sure either of us are built for this – for talking around 
the obvious instead of stabbing it straight in the heart) but this 
looks like what you need, so i give it to you.

some of our friends start to trickle in. it's almost 
midnight, and jason brought a bottle of champagne, 
so we decide to walk to the lake and break it open.

you and i hang back a little, cling to each
other as we walk towards the water, using the cold
as an excuse to grip tighter than we should.

the air is thick and dark, heavy with fog. we smoke
cigarettes and laugh with cold hands until the minutes
run out. a boom goes off across the water. jason
pops the cork. all at once, it's midnight.

i don't look at you, 
because on another night, we might have kissed 
just then, but i have no claim to you, have never 
had any claim to you, and no amount of flour on our 
hands or nights in my bed make us anything other 
than two people who love each other fiercely 
enough to let go.

we pass the bottle back and forth, taking messy 
swigs, welcoming the cheap, tinny brut as it burns 
on top of the tobacco. the toast is to you. they ask 
how you plan to propose, they ask when, and where, 
and i don't listen to any of it too closely, but i laugh
in all the right places.

you take one last long drink as we leave 
the lake, the two of us lingering a few paces 
behind everyone else. you hand the bottle to me.

i take a sip, lips hanging a little 
too long on the rim.

you watch me.

i wonder if you are thinking it too,
that this is it – that this, right now, 
is the last time – and it's not even a real 
kiss, it's passed between us on the edge 
of a bottle. but it's the best either of us
can do. it's the most that's on offer.

later, you walk a little ahead, 
taking your phone out to call her, 

and i leave the bottle on the cement 
behind us, a love letter to nothing 
in particular.