Writing Poetry on New Year's Eve

It's done and I can't think what to tell you.
I'm somehow less
Than before.
It hasn't gotten better, but worse.
But it hasn't only gotten worse, but also better.
I don't feel like raising a glass
And thanking the year that has come and gone.
I don't feel like showing the world
That I am polished, enlightened, serene.
I don't feel like subtly asking you to admire me
And how far I have come
How much I have grown and learned.

The illusion of charmingly imperfect perfection.
A show for an audience barely watching.
And quite forgetful.

It's done now and I feel a vague disquiet.
The thought that someday
It will be better,
This grounding and necessary, determined hope that I will be better.

There's a lot I refuse to accept.
I don't buy for example, this bland notion that our best is good enough.
That our failures are somehow ok because we have done the best we could.
I won't lower my eyes, my expectations and hide behind this platitude.

Because we know.
When we have done the best we could.
It heats our blood
And breaks our hearts.
It grinds our bones to dust.
We know it without needing to be told.

I want to say to myself.
To you,
To anyone.
Your best isn't always going to be good enough
This is just the truth.
A plain, hard, simple truth
Written in your frozen breath on a car window.
Held in your manicured hands.
Tucked away in your bold, beating heart.
Strewn like colorful petals across ice.
Etched in sparkling frost.

Yes, you are loved and lovely
And sometimes you are good and sometimes you are kind and sometimes not.
There is enough hope here under the waning moon to encompass everything you are.
Everything you want to be.
But the best we can do and be is not always enough.

I see my refection in the mirror.
The truth of it in my eyes.
For all my reasonable, diplomatic talk,
My fear of confrontation,
I'm comfortable
Being uncomfortable.
The darkness of my eyes tells me so.

I won't run from you
But I might leave your foundations in shards
Of light and of truth.
Let's see what the new year brings...

Welcome 2016.