Happy Birthday

Fighting with you never made any sense.

There were so many layers we would aggressively peel, unafraid of exposing the other’s raw wounds while tears in our eyes always gave away how we really feel. Like mentos in coke all it ever took was a touchy insult or a pinch a tad bit too hard and volcanoes would erupt and the earth would rumble and doors would slam shut only to open hours later without a knock and in you would stride, Xbox controller in hand, asking me if I’d like to join. Some were worse, louder, harsher as we would bathe in invincibility and adorn recklessness while playing tennis with insults and insecurities until one of us pushed too deep so the rest of the week was tiptoes and conversations either mute or too meek. We fought such a fight for the last time three years ago in the first week of July as we sat across an empty room filled with ideas for another combined birthday but somewhere along the way the ideas turned into shouts and guest lists into taunts until I finally stood up to say “I never want to spend my birthday with you again.” and you looked at me with blurry eyes and asked “but what if it’s my last?” I thought you were too dramatic and you thought I never cared – I thought you had meant moving houses not entire universes – I had shrugged and you had stared but stayed silent and that on its own diffused the violence as we trudged to our rooms and planned our own parties and although we never said sorry you rung in my new year by replacing the candles on my cake with joints you rolled all night perfectly – all twenty. It’s July again but the house stays silent – there are no more birthdays left too plan. Instead I will celebrate tonight, the anniversary of our last fight, by hurling insults and pleas and desperate bargains out into the universe hoping they will knock you down to your knees so I finally have an opportunity to throw myself against your chest and whisper, “I’m so sorry” but the words stay suspended in this large galaxy and I sit in front of a birthday cake, lonely, staring at the flickering wax melt slowly, and wondering if I were to smoke these candles, would my wishes blow out into miracles?

It’s not like any of this ever made any sense