Laura Stevenson
Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve
[Verse 1: Protagonist]

We’re side by side
We’re barely speaking
What’s left belies what’s come and gone
No future here on earth
We’ll settle the creeping sensation we spent our time wrong
It this any different from what we expected?
It’s hastened, of course, but I’m talking results
A pan to the ground and a pan to the sky
So long and goodnight
May our joints turn to rust

[Bridge]

Wake, rise, wait, digitize, sleep, repeat

[Verse 2: Protagonist]

I’m half expecting
A geodesic
Sphere to drop
Onto this building
As Ryan Seacrest
Shouts out digits
The other half has reached its limit
The scene is ugly, you could say lurid
Our backs to walls
Our shades turn putrid
The trope of lives
Flashing past your eyes
Turns out, not real!
But rather, we’re outside ourselves
You’d think we’d be beside ourselves
We process next to nothing
Irises narrowed; pixels swapping

Brace for impact
Sentimental, though we are
Note the impasse
Demarcated
As the arc

[Bridge]

Wake, rise, wait, digitize, sleep, repeat
(10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1)


[Verse 3: Protagonist and Violet]

Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Anxiously awaiting
Pearly gates or chest-high flames
But there’s no rubble to clear
Can’t help but notice we’re still here
This room unchanged
Our world remains
Rotating
Rather strange