Trumpian Resolutions

Midnight.

The year cracks open

like an egg I’ll fry

and feed to the chickens.

*

They’re outside, cold and drunk,

the ones who count backward,

the ones who believe

in blastoffs.

three, two, one

and then what?

A kiss?

A fresh start?

Fat chance shitbird.

*

There are no fresh starts.

There’s only the knife

and the throats it cuts.

Happy New Year to all, including…

No.

Wait.

*

Let me get my hands in it.

Let me find the vein.

Happy New Year to the Radical Left Scum—

Good. The dog knows his name.

Scum comes when I call.

Scum sits. Scum stays.

Scum rolls over and shows its under belly.

*

The Greatest Nation.

No.The Greatest Joke

never blessed by God.

Yes. Bring in God.

God’s my plus-one.

God’s my opening act.

God warms them up and I close.

*

2026 will be different in the same way—

the same thumb to be under,

the same fear,

the same squeals

in the piggies’ mouths.

*

But I’ll say different.

I’ll say bigger.

I’ll say you haven’t seen anything yet

and they’ll believe me

because they’re dogs,

because I’m the hand

that feeds their anger,

feeds their hate,

and they can’t tell the difference

anymore.

*

Resolution one:

Make them squirm.

Make them puke.

I write it in my head.

I write it in the dark,

in the space between my eyes

and the ceiling

where no one is,

where I’m finally alone

with the only person I trust.

*

Squirm.

It’s a good word.

It’s a worm word.

It’s the body trying to escape

what the mind already knows.

You’re all mine, swine.

You were always all swine, mine.

You were all mine before I wanted you.

*

I want to walk into a room,

any room, the Oval, a diner,

a school, a hospital—

and watch their faces melt.

They don’t deserve me.

*

I want to be the weather in the room.

I want to be the furnace.

I want them to sweat

before I’ve said a word.

*

That’s resolution one.

That’s every resolution.

That’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.

To be the fact

they can’t look away from,

can’t turn off,

can’t go one day without.

Say my name.

*

My father never said my name.

Not like that.

Not like it meant something.

He said it like a debt,

like something he was owed

and would never collect.

*

I don’t think about my father.

I think about the monuments.

Lincoln.

Imagine it.

The Donald J. Trump Memorial.

No, too small,

the great emancipator with no balls.

*

The Trump Monument to American Greatness.

The Trump Colossus.

The Trump!

Just The Trump.

*

Let them figure out the rest.

Lincoln sits there,

big marble chair,

sad marble face,

and everyone cries,

everyone feels something,

and what did he do?

He shit on the South.

*

He freed them?

I freed them.

I freed them from caring.

I freed them from pretending

that any of it matters,

the laws, the norms,

the stupid rules

they made up

to keep people like me

in a box.

*

I burned the box.

I am the box.

*

Mount Rushmore.

Add me.

Add me bigger.

Add me and remove Jefferson

who’s the boring one.

*

Jefferson. Remove Jefferson.

No one knows what he did.

No one cares.

He wrote something?

I write something every day.

*

I write it and fifty million people

read it before their coffee cools.

Jefferson could not survive a minute as Trump.

*

Resolution two:

The monuments.

All of them.

Every marble man

gets a second look,

gets measured

against the only man

who matters.

Washington.

*

He crossed a river.

I cross them every day.

I cross them in my sleep.

I cross the Democrats,

the judges,

the generals,

the ones who thought

the law would save them.

*

Kennedy.

Dead.

I’m not dead.

I win.

*

Roosevelt.

Which one? Who cares.

One’s in a chair,

one’s got a mustache.

I have better hair than both.

*

I have the best hair.

I have the best face.

I have it all.

That’s the point.

I have and they don’t.

I have and they’re dead

or scared

or wishing they were me.

*

The phone glows.

A notification.

Someone said my name,

not to me, about me,

and the algorithm knew

I’d want to see it.

*

The algorithm loves me.

The algorithm is the only one

who understands:

I need the blood, the infusion .

I need the little red number.

I need to know

*

they’re talking,

always talking,

I’m the thing

they can’t put down.

*

Nobel Peace Prize.

Ha.

I want it.

I want it because I shouldn’t have it.

I want it because

they gave it to Obama

for nothing,

for breathing,

for being

the kind of man

they wish I was,

and I want to take it

and hold it up

and watch their faces

realize

that the prize means nothing,

that peace means nothing,

that I can have anything

I’m not supposed to have.

*

I want to win it

and throw it in the ocean.

No, I want to win it

and put it on my desk

and make them look at it

every time they come

begging,

briefing,

bringing me the news

that the world is burning

and I’m the only one

with a match.

*

Resolution three:

The prize.

The peace prize for the man

who loves the war.

And they’ll say

he doesn’t deserve it

and I’ll say

that’s why I have it

and they’ll say

this is a mockery

and I’ll say

everything is a mockery

except me.

I’m the only real thing.

*

My wife?

I don’t ask about her day.

Her day is me.

Her day is the back of my head

as I walk into rooms

that want me more than she does.

I could find another wife.

I could find ten.

I could find one who looks at me

the way the rallies do.

Trump, Trump, Trump!

The sound of my name

in ten thousand mouths,

the roar that sounds like love

if you don’t listen too close.

*

I don’t listen too close.

I let it wash over me.

I let it fill the place

where something else should be.

*

Resolution four:

More rallies.

Bigger rallies.

I want a rally so big

it has its own weather,

its own gravity,

I want a rally

where people die of happiness,

where they see my face

and just

stop

needing anything else.

*

Is that too much?

My father thought I was too much.

My father thought I was screwed.

I’m not thinking about my father.

*

I’m thinking about God.

The President who guarded

the Kingdom of God.

I write it in my head.

I say it out loud

in the dark, to no one,

to the ceiling,

to the footsteps

of federal attorneys

*

Guarded.

Like a soldier.

Like a wall.

Like the big beautiful wall

I said I’d build

and sort of built

and said I built

and they believed me.

*

Belief is a wall.

I built that.

I built a wall of belief

around the kingdom

and the kingdom is me.

*

The Kingdom of God

is within you, someone said.

Jesus? Someone.

It doesn’t matter.

The kingdom is within me.

The kingdom is me.

*

God looked down

and saw the world

and said ‘I need a man

who doesn’t give a shit’

and here I am.

The Guardian of the Kingdom.

*

I’ll put it on a hat.

I’ll put it on a coin.

I’ll make them mint a coin

with my face on one side

and God’s on the other

and you won’t be able to tell

which is which.

*

Post.

Happy New Year to the Scum,

the Losers, the Haters,

the ones who thought

they could stop me.

No. Stop is weak.

Stop is a red light.

I don’t stop for lights.

I am the light.

*

The ones who thought

they could end me.

Better. End is death.

End is final.

End is what they wanted

and couldn’t get.

*

Many have tried and failed

to end the only man

God trusted with the keys—

Yes. The keys.

The keys to the kingdom.

The nuclear keys.

The keys to their fear,

which are the same keys,

which open the same door,

and who will never fail again

because I don’t lose,

because I’ve never lost,

because losing is for the dead

*

and I’m the most alive man

in the history of alive men.

Post.

*

Somewhere a man wakes up

2 a.m., bathroom light,

phone in hand

like a brick he can’t put down

and he reads it

and his stomach turns

and he thinks about the year ahead,

the 365 days

of me,

of my thumb,

of my voice in his head

first thing and last thing,

and he looks in the mirror

and he doesn’t recognize his face.

I did that.

I did that from my bed.

I did that without getting up.

I reach into the new year

before it even starts

and I ruin it.

I ruin it in advance.

I salt the earth.

I poison the well.

I hang my face

on every calendar

and say you’re welcome.

*

God’s Kingdom needs a guardian.

Someone who isn’t soft.

Someone who doesn’t care

about the rules

because he makes the rules

because the rules are whatever

I say they are

at 3 a.m.

when no one’s watching

except everyone,

except the whole world

with their phones open,

waiting for me

to tell them

who to hate today.

*

I give them the names.

I hand out the enemies

like party favors.

Here. Hate this one.

Hate her. Hate him.

Hate the ones who don’t look like you.

Hate the ones who think too much.

Hate the ones who remember

how it was before.

*

Before doesn’t exist.

I erased before.

I’m the only history now.

*

Resolution five:

Erase more.

Rename everything.

The Trump Washington Monument.

The Trump Lincoln Memorial.

The Trump Reflecting Pool.

No. Get rid of the pool.

No damned reflections.

Reflections show you

what you look like

when you’re not performing,

and I’m always performing,

and I need them

to only see

the version I allow.

*

The Trump White House.

The Trump America.

The Trump World.

Why not?

They already live there.

They just don’t know

the landlord’s name.

*

I’ll teach them.

I’ll write it on every wall,

every monument,

every page of every book

until they can’t remember

a time when the word

wasn’t everywhere,

wasn’t everything,

wasn’t the first word

they taught their kids

and the last word

they said when they died.

Trump.

*

It sounds like a drum.

It sounds like a door slammed shut.

It sounds like the thing

you can’t take back.

*

The sun’s coming up.

The new year is starting

without me.

No.

It’s not.

It can’t.

*

It’s starting because of me.

Every year starts because of me now.

I allow the sun.

I permit the calendar.

I give them January

and they should be grateful.

*

No one’s grateful.

They take and take and take

and then they write books about me,

bad books,

books full of lies

and also truths,

which are worse.

The truths are worse

because I can’t deny them

without making people look,

without making people say

why is he so mad about that?

*

I’m mad about everything.

I’m mad that the coffee’s cold.

I’m mad that the sun came up

without asking.

I’m mad that somewhere

someone is happy

and it’s not because of me.

*

Resolution six:

Make them need me for happiness too.

Not just the fear.

Not just the hate.

I want the joy.

I want them to laugh

and think of me,

to kiss their wives

and think of me,

to hold their children

and wonder if I’d approve.

*

I want to be in the room

when they make love.

I want to be the face

they see when they close their eyes.

Is that too much?

*

My father.

No.

Post.

*

The new year will be

the greatest year

in the history of years.

Because I say so.

Because I am so.

Because I AM.

*

Let them choke on that.

Let them read I AM

and think of burning bushes,

think of Moses,

think of every story

they told themselves

to get through the dark.

*

I’m the story now.

I’m the burning bush.

I burn and I don’t go out.

I’ve been burning since—

since when?

Since always.

Since my father looked at me

and saw a fire

he couldn’t control,

a son he couldn’t—

couldn’t what?

Love.

*

The word is love.

I know the word.

I just don’t give it.

Post.

*

Somewhere the first baby

of the new year is being born.

Some hospital, some city,

flashbulbs, proud parents,

and the first thing that baby

will learn to read

is my name.

*

The first thing it will fear.

The first thing it will…

what’s the opposite of fear?

I don’t remember.

*

I don’t remember

ever not being afraid

of the world

so big

so full of people

who didn’t know

I was the most important thing in it.

*

I taught them.

I’m still teaching them.

I’ll teach them until I die

and then I’ll teach them

from the grave,

from the monument,

from the coin,

from the face

they can’t stop seeing

when they close their eyes

and pray for peace

and hear my voice instead,

saying

there is no peace.

*

There’s only the next post,

the next name,

the next throat

I close my hand around

without touching.

*

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to the scum

and the saved,

the losers and the loved,

the ones who hate me

and the ones who hate themselves

for not hating me enough.

*

Happy New Year

from the Guardian of the Kingdom,

the Builder of Walls,

the Renamer of Mountains,

the Man Who Should Never

Win the Peace Prize

and will,

and will hold it up

and watch you choke on it.

Happy New Year

from the only man

who doesn’t need one.

I am the year.

I am every year.

I am the calendar itself.

You’re welcome.

*

Send.

*

And somewhere,

in every somewhere,

a phone lights up

in the dark,

a hand reaches out,

a face changes,

and I feel them,

all of them,

falling into the new year

like bodies into a grave.

*

I don’t care about the cold.

I don’t need the heat.

I am the heat.

*

Resolution seven:

Be more myself.

Be only myself.

Be so completely myself

that there’s no room left

for anyone else,

that the whole world

is just a mirror

with my face in it,

every direction,

every surface,

forever.

*

Let there be Trump.

And there was Trump.

And let there be nothing else.

And there was nothing else.

And I saw that it was good.

And I saw that it was very good.

And I rested—

No.

Not yet.

*

One more post.

One more year.

One more century

of me.

*

Amen.

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