anniversary averse

As soon as you have a birthday
- you think it's all cake you
can have and eat, and you can
At first, it is - but it quickly grows
bent all out of shape
and proportion, becomes

something used-to, and used against

...And if they all know what it is,
they can pin
you down

by counting each time it comes
around, saying

"You've been alive
at least three years! I know because
I was a witness. Cheers!"

Frown.
Where will it lead?
You know.
Eventually
how such things go.

Technically, I guess
any day will do.

A long, sharp needle
to push into and through
- and look! Back, it's a calendar

you're stuck to this day
with blood dripping down
framed by strict crossed lines
in a grid of squares,
and reduced to one
that is now for her
or him
or them
or us
all theirs

to pin

you down
to, and remember when
it comes around -

"Hey! Look at you now!"

"That's another year!
You've been alive
- we're counting,
you know. It all adds up

you will not survive"
(is very implied)
the I-told-you-so's,

but
if no one has any day or date
with your name on it to associate
they'll associate you

with a presence vague,
drifting in and out
and always the same,
but underplayed and well-
recognized, cloaked in definite doubt:
Where you came from, and when? How
will you stay or go? And why?

Sad pout, and then

They will never know what
to I-told-you so.
Baffled and stymied by fields
of mysterious Zen,
and unknowable glow

beyond their smooth
plastic malibu ken