Please don’t kiss me

James Bowden and Eve Blank

It is 4891 and I don’t subscribe to the holiday
traditions of yore, anymore. New year, new me, my ass–
when’s the last time you saw one of those
work? I am not new. I refuse to be new. I will soon see
a girl at the Hungarian pastry shop. No, we
haven’t been. You will try to ask me who – doesn’t matter,
give it up, no, we aren’t betrothed, life is
too short for that, but I need somebody to kiss me into
the new year. (If God really made us in His
image, why this gaping need? Wait–) I’m stuffing my face
full of apples, really, I write to forget that you
won’t ever read this, where’s the cider, fuck, that’s right,
it evaporated last week along with my ability
to recall your blood type, I’d probably have remembered
had we been compatible, I guess. Along with
any chance weThese days, I go to great lengths to undermine my self, or more importantly,
the narrative cohesion that keeps threatening
to accompany it, like a vampire at high noon,
like licking your teeth once more, or an amateur
poet pining on the new year’s eve.