Yelp Reviews of 1998, by Amorak Huey

⋆⋆⋆
like would I go back if I could?
it has rained for thirty-six hours & I am bored of the present so sure maybe 

 ⋆⋆⋆⋆
every year is a good year for music when viewed through the clarifying lens of a kaleidoscope metal sounds better in color even the ballads

 ⋆
God I was so hungry         & had no one
to feed me

 ⋆⋆
my experience is not your experience is not typical for a while there was a girl her name started with K a hard sound like that she had eyes for me yes but only for a while I said that what else do we get from this world a few years when our bodies our minds our hearts pull together this was not one of those years 

 ⋆
lips & fingertips rhyme this seemed so profound at the time
we were such jerks back then
which means
you guessed it

 ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
the number one song of the year pretended it was about faith but it was about sex & the next five songs were straight up about sex then there was one about heaven but really sex what’s not to like

 ⋆⋆⋆
“I’m not a big sandwich person but the two I’ve had here were perfect”

 ⋆⋆
we showed up thinking this year would be different somehow always happy to give a new place a try we need years like this around here the sex was the same as any other year sure most of us left the year still alive which tells you more about our demographic than anything else honestly our hopes were higher maybe we’ll give it another chance someday but we’re in no hurry

 ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆
third concert first kiss fourth concert another first kiss drunk in Panama City Beach drunk at Octoberfest drunk on fraternity row surrounded by frat boys it’s all so stupid but also righteous drunk people think they’re not like other drunk people that’s what I remember
 about this year that & being measured for a suit that didn’t fit anyway 

 ⋆⋆⋆⋆
love was suddenly not just a word we’d found in a dictionary like imbroglio or debase we had no language for the new ways our bodies fooled us faith maybe 

 ⋆⋆
had this whole review written then realized I was writing about 1989 which is the year next door so I deleted it but leaving the two stars because years should be easier to tell apart thanks for wasting my time 

 ⋆⋆⋆
at first everyone was pretending but after we listened to enough songs irony died and this was just our life “therefore I have only pretended to pretend” the philosopher said 

 ⋆
the problem with nostalgia
is fuck you
nostalgia

 ⋆⋆⋆
if years had names instead of numbers would we remember them differently would they be named after women or men or oceans or maybe flowers they would be more like storms

 ⋆⋆⋆⋆
I am willing to admit some part of this was my fault I woke up thinking about a girl long gone her name opens with a sea or an ess a hiss like that how we ended the year at a skating rink blading gingerly across ice waiting for midnight so cold in there our breath writing clouds between us we held hands to keep from falling

Amorak Huey, a 2017 NEA Fellow, is author of the poetry collections Ha Ha Ha Thump (Sundress, 2015) and Boom Box (Sundress, forthcoming 2019), as well as two chapbooks. He is co-author of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2018) and teaches at Grand Valley State University.