Birthdays are weird. I’ve always been of two minds about them. On the one hand, they’re excellent moments in time to celebrate life. To enjoy the fruits of one more trip around the sun. On the other hand, they’re equally invaluable instances of reflection.

Questions like “who am I; what do I want to change; what do I want to keep the same?” all flood the brain. And while these may not be helpful on the day-to-day, they are helpful on a birthday.

I don’t mean to make this kind of day some sort of fucked-up personal performance evaluation, but on odd-ended years (as this one is for me) I like to make it a point to make sure that I am okay. To engage in self-care on the macro scale of the person I am trying to be.

Anyways, that’s part of what drove these poems. The other part was just the impressonistic nature of memory. And frankly, because this post centers around birthdays, I wanted to treat everybody to a poem that sums up how I feel about it, and a poem that I just really like.

Threading the needle, I want to be the person that can do both.

---

I want to thank my Patreon subscribers, including Jenny, Julie, Michael, Doji, Roshi and Zero for being such patient and supportive persons. Your support makes this possible and for that I am eternally grateful.

---

---

So This Is The Next Great Estate

Here dragons of fatigue and tweaked knees lay
In wait; this is no longer a young man’s game,
No longer a collegiate escape.

No job, no money for Taxman Tim to take
Searching only for a miracle that I can make

Between paper and pen, I wonder if I’ll reach
What I’ve always wanted, find where I’ve always
Been headed, the next great estate.

She was an angel, that’s all

I remember, brown hippie hair
sharing the pillow, arm
numb and netted beneath
the nape of her neck like
a Renoir souvenir,
gone by the morrow day;

I remember cheeks became shale and
eyes’ coated in rime—God’s
witness, an agnostic
still searches memories;
we’re supposed to forget
the faces and lose moments

Dear; our bodies back-to-belly
sharing the sweat and sand,
still riding, still hiding,
still sticking on our skin
“Goddamnit,” I cry and
she asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I turn to face her, red
hair Magyar, dimpled cheeks
beaming, eyes prying, eyes
creeping behind a sepia
tone lens, “Nothing, just
thought these shoes were empty.”

---