Today is a special day. It
is precisely three weeks af
ter the occasion of my 55th
birthday. I used to give all
sorts of vague impressions
saving when; as in when in
the poems here which I call,
you know probably all too well,
the trite and yet stuck name:
ANACHRONIZMS. As in where is
the time? As in where in the
time are these quatrains I spend
mulling a somewhat incomprehensible
double nickel birthday? Might it be
something special? Something in
appropriate? Or something that is,
rather, particularly exemplary of me; that
could show, in some way, the best of all poss
ible mes? And how that perfect me could not
but be a reflection of the relevance of you. But
why just right? To celebrate it for the three weeks,
it has already been occurring? Have I not already
been personally celebrating since, well, birth?
Beyond that, however, is this uniquely singular
celebration. The now seemingly normal celebra
tion of one (but there is you). Plenty of lovely,
loving thoughts keep getting directed from the
only person with whom I can iso desirously and
hopefully imagine really wanting to
spend this, or any forthcoming birthday,
holiday, weekend, lazy evening after work;
and did you think it would not always be this
special? That you would not always be this
special? Again, it is in this way that I can
never really truly know what was before? Well,
my friends (my friends, my friends, and these
meanderings), special can be felt, and is, and can
be imagined. And this unlikely, luxuriant, inexplicable
love can be found in more ways than can be counted.
There can come that era when each day after another
will refuse not to be more special and more unlikely
and more undeserved than ever before. Or no,
clearly, today is not even my day to celebrate anything.
(And yet, how dare you, it's a day of celebration like no other,
now that I'm 55 and three weeks old, how dare I spend such time
filling my silly brain with any doubts. Most especially about
you.) To the question of how I can be so worthy as
to get to experience the magnificence of this,
I am or am not. So I turn these silly thoughts
into just another fortuitous and unlikely joyride.
And why? Oh, why not? Of the impossibility of being
ungrateful, for the inability of feeling (the capability
of such feeling) any less grateful one day than I do
the next? And so indelicately and routinely? These are
the conundrums that make up the very miracle of existence
itself. Like the paradoxes of importance of my
each and every day. Oh, the thought of every day
with you. I deserve this every day. You may not be so
deserving of this blah. You might find this a bit less than
that for which you had bargained. But you are such a gift to
me. But there is ever a complaint. I'm sure there are
those that are harbored. But I can see how this is not
something for which you, unlike me, care to give
much of your precious thought. So how can my life
not be rich without your presence?
Who can honestly call this nonsense
and mean it as I pretend I do – if
anyone were ever to deserve such a thing
would it be naught but an exercise in the unnecessary?
Could it be enough, would it be but an impossible whim,
an exercise in futility, to laugh at my life as a
passive? (Any more than the impossibility that I could
in some small way change my pacifism, let's say?)
I used to be well known for spending weeks lost in
but one birthday or negligible holiday or another
with my compatriots. Compatriots who turned
out to push me along until I was fifty into a world
with no compatriots. Zero. They were comfakriots.
Sure, such disappearances are not gauche in some circles.
Some, the general lot of them, can come to seem perfectly
normal. Many species mate and then die. Do I? The cycle
continues. So what if I have spent my official 55th birthday
being several years older than 55. It is official only because
I have said it. Two and a half years plus three weeks plus
sixty years of that which is official only because I say it is,
it being three and twenty years, plus some odd number of
weeks since, have left one true anniversary of my long ago birth
(and here it could be said that I was once notorious, among
my comfakriots, once to have been notorious for celebrating
the anniversary of my birthdays, the anniversaries of my birth
days, for as long as a complete month at a time, for perhaps
even two. There were rituals. Involving other people. For
better or worse. For richer or poorer. In sickness and
in health. There has been a tremendous amount of
of incalculable pleasure. Pressure. Better? Any occasion
is best, especially that of a close death, a distance
found both tragic and terribly magnificent, so useful
and also so beautiful, in which to gather the
appropriate perspective. . . . My holiday,
if I may, is a holiday and a half, and that
is at the very least. After all, it’s my birthday.
But today, I’ve spent it working on things to keep me
not only happy, but doing things that will have me
grow older, and grow less and less alone, having
long ago lost all of my believed existence to fools who
would consider my invitation, my nonsense, my odd notion
of living, of existing, and I can only hope that we may, as it seems
more and more likely to be the case, is one in which we are
alone almost nothing, be together, you and I, anyway, we
are an unexpected aspect of such a lost and found
existence, a spark that spreads like wildfire on a
frozen tundra. That I shall have another birthday,
as long as I shall live, which some days, honestly,
I don’t think will be a moment longer. And yet,
the joke is not only on me, but it is me, and it
is from me to you with love. It’s that bad luck
thing that I dwell on all too often while trying not to,
because of the way we were once told to live. A
singular way to die, is why. We are no longer told
to live. We simply live. Is that living? Our eyes half
open. Not even expecting a swerve, just knowing one
will come, and then, a fire so deep and so mutual that
we freeze and fixate and live it together. What a stew
of higgledypoop. Which is what I try to have in lieu
of a cake. But what about this year? Higgledypoop!
Cake, ice cream, ice dreams that are just the two of us,
all the flat-headed frozen-brained skulls have been em
ptied, gone. The use. The best use of my time. Ice cream
and cake. But enough of this wish-washy uncertainty
about whether or not I will live to see spend the longest
imaginable hug with who I can only hope will be my
longest ever partner (and by record numbers, which
would be somewhat astounding, I suppose, if I were to
put more thought into these things for just a moment;
but there is not enough time. . . ). Quite. seeing
how, in order to do that, what would I be seeking
that is not about the crazy dream I had last night
in which we were traveling quickly to get somewhere
(else? together?) before one of the two of us
(obviously me) lost life, was dead, would
have become nonexistent, just for taking too long.
What does it mean to approach a relationship of over
two and a half years, approaching a trinity, and having
never had to ability to even touch? All this sounds like sad
ness in the grip of a pretty mid-to-twilight age birthday in which
I’ve extended yet again to have such random and mostly
pleasant or satisfying thoughts. So. I keep reminding
myself that day after day after day after day of those
not-so-satisfying thoughts, why bother with them.
Especially when there are so many wonderfully
satisfying thoughts of imagined adventures, of
lovely conversations, and of spending entire
cool evenings (like this one) well into the morn
ing loving those thoughts. The adventures. The
Things we’ve never done, like touching, which
seems absurd but yet exciting and yet unfair
all at once, simultaneously, considering we have
what are otherwise the same cycles that two
people often have when in a relationship. It’s
no less real (Is this something I keep needing to
tell myself? Sure. It’s uncharted territory, and
if I were to think of the odds stacked against
our favor when it comes to having a precious
forever thing, and what would that be, what
with things like age difference and current sep
arate hemispheres and either the world and/or
its people growing so weary that things have
what seems an all too often apocalyptic flare.
Fuck me and my doubts. Fuck logic. It’s, yes,
it has to be the best experience of love that I’ve
yet to encounter, and I’d like to consider that I’ve
experienced so much of it. So I’ve – please just
take me at my word – should I have photographs
that I can share? Perhaps. Will I ever share them
with you, my dear reader, perhaps. But perhaps
not. I’ll close with what I plan to be the celebration
with which I will share with my surely befuddled
but hopefully just bemused and – could it
possible even be proud mate – how I’m going
to close off these evening and this rather mor
bid but so very real poem. I’ve got candles,
each in the shape of a red five with gold glitter
covering up the bottom half. These are poked
into a pair of pears atop my microwave. I’ve al
so got some white sage incense stuck into a
half burned candle bowl which I am about to
get up and light right this moment, knowing
full well that the pungent odor will be divine
for perhaps a few seconds and then fill my
coffin-sized SRO way too pungently shortly
thereafter. And I might as well mention that
I am buck naked but for two things I’m wear
ing – one is a silver tiara made of paper that
says HAPPY BIRTHDAY (think rabbit ears);
the other a sash across my diabetic tummy
which I’m thinking is ever so slightly less
than the plump tub that it was when I first
was diagnosed with diabetes (my first bout
with Covid-19 apparently drew it out of me
quite deliberately). Across the sash upon
my distended belly are the words in a multi-
colored font “it’s my birthday” – very shim
mery and festive. So now I shall paste on
my smile and see if I can reach my new
reason to celebrate my birthday, which I
generally always have, it’s not that melo
dramatic, much as I try. And yet it obviously
is. Here’s to hoping our lips touch for
the first time this year, perhaps even in
a couple of short months.
Happy Birthday to Me!
