I want to write you a birthday poem,
42 stanzas and a grand finale that Neruda and Keats
would turn green at & have to eat the rest of the cake to comfort themselves.
I want to bake you that cake, 6 stories high girded with chocolate and reinforced with
butter & all the good things that you deserve for having survived this long.
Twenty years. 86,400 seconds every day, every day since
your little wrinkeldredself first breathed in. I want to write an ode to your hair, to your hands, to your mouth, things which for decades have caused wonder
to light up in the minds of those around you.
It's your birthday, and you deserve the Arc du Triomph in verse & cake & candles
and a million cards that categorize the billion reasons I love you from nose to toes,
but it's 1 am & i'm tired & my poetic side malevolently went off to chase unicorns
somewhere, and i'm weary beyond bearing - not quite as weary as the lady that night in primordial pain, her cheeks two concetrated roses of effort in her pale face. Your mother's pain gave you the chance
to taste Time & feel it for yourself - I am not as weary as all that, not at all.
Mostly, i'm just glad its your birthday
and you haven't jumped ship or skivvied off into the jungles of some city or adventuresome place - i'm glad you're twenty here and now, where i can
track you down
and hug you till your bones crack. Maybe someday i will write you a birthday poem,
so stay alive.
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