Feeling: Excited
Listening to: I Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode

Guys, guys! I just realised something.

And this is such a huge revelation; it's opening doors to so many new (or old) possibilities.

I discovered that if I just write and write without concerning myself with rhyme or reason or rhythm, I can accomplish so much more than if I follow my usual mode of action by overanalysing everything I try to put into words but never actually finish.

To prove my point, I WROTE A POEM, GUYS.

A poem.

I haven't been able to do that since fucking 2009.

I think I'm on to something.

The Benjamin Franklin of Monogamy by Jeffrey McDaniel

Reminiscing in the drizzle of Portland, I notice the ring that's landed on your finger, a massive insect of glitter, a chandelier shining at the end

of a long tunnel. Thirteen years ago, you hid the hurt in your voice under a blanket and said there's two kinds of women — those you write poems about

and those you don't. It's true. I never brought you a bouquet of sonnets, or served you haiku in bed. My idea of courtship was tapping Jane's Addiction

lyrics in Morse code on your window at three A.M., whiskey doing push-ups on my breath. But I worked within the confines of my character, cast

as the bad boy in your life, the Magellan of your dark side. We don't have a past so much as a bunch of electricity and liquor, power

never put to good use. What we had together makes it sound like a virus, as if we caught one another like colds, and desire was merely

a symptom that could be treated with soup and lots of sex. Gliding beside you now, I feel like the Benjamin Franklin of monogamy,

as if I invented it, but I'm still not immune to your waterfall scent, still haven't developed antibodies for your smile. I don't know how long

regret existed before humans stuck a word on it. I don't know how many paper towels it would take to wipe up the Pacific Ocean, or why the light

of a candle being blown out travels faster than the luminescence of one that's just been lit, but I do know that all our huffing and puffing

into each other's ears — as if the brain was a trick birthday candle — didn't make the silence any easier to navigate. I'm sorry all the kisses

I scrawled on your neck were written in disappearing ink. Sometimes I thought of you so hard one of your legs would pop out

of my ear hole, and when I was sleeping, you'd press your face against the porthole of my submarine. I'm sorry this poem has taken thirteen years

to reach you. I wish that just once, instead of skidding off the shoulder blade's precipice and joyriding over flesh, we'd put our hands away like chocolate

to be saved for later, and deciphered the calligraphy of each other's eyelashes, translated a paragraph from the volumes of what couldn't be said.

She wanted so badly to pull him close and kiss him hard on the mouth. She wanted everything to be okay and for it to just stop hurting so goddamn much. Nobody knew how broken up she was inside and how difficult it was to keep all of the little pieces together all the fucking time.

Feeling: Hungry
Listening to: Wash by Bon Iver

2012... Where do I start?

You were full of change and wonder and some pretty fond memories. On the surface, I left the warmth and predictability of home and family for the cold and randomness of a foreign land I knew nothing about, but I don't know if you realise what you meant for me beyond that.

It was in 2012 that my father was finally able to accept that I am my own person; I realised that okay times can become freakin' amazing times with just a little effort and positive thinking; I made good friends in unlikely and sometimes forgotten places; and I rediscovered myself and learnt that that's nothing to be ashamed of.

But despite the good that came out of you, you were also the year I failed to be the best version of myself; I sometimes forgot that I am in control of my own happiness and that it is my responsibility alone; I let go of people I meant to hold on to; and although I was able to acknowledge my flaws, I kept forgetting to do something about them.

So, yes, you have been a rollercoaster of a year (I love rollercoasters). You served your 366 days graciously and you were (for the most part) great fun, but your time is up.

I know there is still a stupid amount of things I need to experience and learn and discover, so thank goodness we managed to survive that whole apocalypse fiasco, huh?

With that, I must wish the newborn 2013 the best of luck. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into, but I promise to get the better of you. I am going to whoop the hell out of your ass and you're going to ask me to stop and I won't and it's going to be great.

Here's to a year of betterment and being awesome!