A lot changed for me that day.
My first peek at a perfect “ten”
stuffed in the folds of my bed,
a Gideon Bible it was
not.
Mom was home from the nine-to-
“sometime”
and frantically affixing favors
some paper, some metaphorical
to eight bedazzled paper plates.
Dad told me to shut the TV off,
so after I sip of 7-Up, I cast The Simpsons
back into the dark,
where I thought we’d be
when the world seemed destined
for change.
Another six-pack for Dad,
his thumb couldn’t stop caressing
the rim, as if trying to carve
his fingerprints off
in case that’s all they had
to ID us.
I had already told myself
I’d stick out my prose
with my doctor’s scrawl signature
and declare myself
poet laureate of
armageddon.
I tried to give my brother a high-five,
as we huddled around our radio,
but we had disconnected
a few fights ago,
so I settled for four
digits slapping his arm.
A trio of bugs
kept trying to annihilate
themselves in the candle’s glow,
why? To caress
the enders’ embers
like I dreamed about,
two weeks earlier.
I was one with
the idea of
the ball
Dropping.
The clock struck midnight
and the world didn’t change.
I guess we weren’t expected to.
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