Birthdays

Life begins on nights of passion; the extreme heat generated from the passion created by two people, comes together with an icy element in a girl’s body and forms a child. In the making, a tiny sliver of energy breaks off from the core of each person and shoots into the mass of heat and ice that is a child. It is these slivers of two different people that give the child its life and passion…
I wake up at 3 a.m. and glance at my clock. Why, I groan to myself, do I always wake up at 3 a.m. on my birthday?!? What kind of internal present is that! I roll over and bury my head in the quilts, but I know there is no going back to sleep. So my mind takes up inventory of thoughts and memories. 17, it marvels, old as time… and a whisper in the background, “Maybe this year will be sweet…”
I daydream (ha it’s still night I am just awake!) about boys and freedom. Imagining my far away boyfriend (most likely a perverted bald guy using me for masturbation fuel)…. I shake my head, an odd habit I have, (used to “shake” distasteful thoughts from my head) and sigh into the pillow ….. Uggg.
Why do people celebrate birthdays? It is only the anniversary of your first breath of air, no great accomplishment or memorable moment, just another tick on the warranty for your dying body. Another reminder that someday soon your lungs won’t be able to pull in the poison soaked air, your heart will be unable to squeeze any more blood into screaming veins and you will die… I smile at myself, “So dark Karlie, for your birthday.” I feel a little better thinking how close I am to breaching the gap to 18, so close, and yet so far away… and now I can go to rated R movies…legally anyway, I’ve been sneaking in for ages… what will I do when there is nothing I can’t do? I wonder. That will truly be a sad and depressing birthday. I get out of bed finally and creep to the shower, taking a moment to gaze into the mirror to check for wrinkles or any other significant differences about my appearance… nope… Another year and I look the same, not so white teeth, (when will my mother fork up the money for a dentist?) limp dirt brown hair, pale scarred skin, jagged black brows, a huge obstructing missile (my nose) that looks about to be deployed from my head, muddy green eyes, pouty lips and the over all pasty look of a ghost. ….. Good, I think, at least I know I wasn’t transported out of my body… More sighing as I climb into the shower.
Birthdays are annoying because when you want to be noticed no one notices, and when you want to remain anonymous someone freaks out and you are the center of attention in a crowd of people.
I open presents and get a DVD player this would be heaven I think…. If only I had a TV…
The day ends at last and I lay again on my comforters, thinking of the past year, its ups and downs… I can’t help wishing on the shooting star outside my window, and I fall asleep dreaming … of another year…

~Pyragus M.