A New Year

My eyes sweep the clutter around me, looking for material, wondering which one goes first, which one goes with what, which one stays where it is--I, who have no gift for organization, whose bed is lined with stray books that have no relation to each other, some odds, some ends, a pencil; who mixes up the days in the calendar; who has no calendar.

But the hand and mind grow more listless as the days pass; the year is about to end, that much I know. I find myself cleaning up, instead.

It is the broken heart that has gathered the most dust, so it is the first to go. Tear-stained records follow suit, and how can that empty beer bottle still be where it is? That corner looks like a good spot for a coffee table and a vase. I'll buy the flowers myself, I'll make sure to say. There were never any flowers. The room echoes with forgotten sobbing. Was there really that much crying? I laugh a little. They need to go, too, these echoes have no business being here. Ah, but this is turning into a more difficult task than I thought, and it wasn't even what I had set myself to do. The things we deliberately lose eventually catch up with us, don't they always? But there are ways to make things easier, there always is.

With haste, I throw things away. The trash bag quickly fills up. A handful of empty pens, strings of sadness, socks that don't match, bits of despair, an armless cup, leftover bitterness, a rusty, blunt-edged knife, a cracked plate, loneliness. I'm almost done.

No. I am done. I crumple one remaining piece of regret and shoot it into the expectant bag. How light it feels, how new.

I look for B. B. King and draw the curtains to let the light in. Here is music, here is sunlight. So much sunlight, beautiful sunlight.

I fix myself a cup of warm, fragrant tea. I am ready for the New Year.

You, there.

I am throwing a smooth, grey stone your way. It will land near your left foot.

You will look up from the book you've been trying to read, take your glasses off, and bend down from your seat to pick the stone up. You will turn it in your hands, wondering where it's from, but only for a little while. You will soon realize it's from me, and you will not find it strange, no, not at all. You will not look for a crack in your roof, you will not wonder about distances. You will not think about strangeness, because you and I have already been to most worlds, together.

You will only think about sunlit gardens, wide straw hats, coffee in the rain, shared seats in flights to nowhere, warm hugs, buttered potatoes, pecks on the nose, foot massages. You will think about The Sundays, you will hear me reciting poetry. You will remember that story I wrote, many years ago. You will think of that story you filled with songs, moonbeams, and stars, wrapped in pretty paper, tied with a bow, and gave me on my birthday. You will mumble to yourself, "I once rescued her from a flood of tears, yes, I did." Because you did.

You will smile, dear one, you will be happy. And if I have to keep throwing stones your way for the rest of this life just to remind you I am here, then that is exactly what I will do, even now, as the bones on my hip start to ache from the weight of years, even if it means I have to plod through decades and dimensions, and walk back miles to where we started.

You will smile, dear one, right this very instant.