Happy birthday to me

Happy Birthday is so generic. My dentist sends me a card but I know he doesn’t give a damn if I have a happy birthday. Happy Birthday is like saying good morning or not making eye contact with people on the metro train. It’s distant and insincere but we live in a Hallmark culture so people do it half-ass just to keep the peace. We need to buy cards for every damn holiday, sign our name and proclaim look motherfucker I care, sorta. I care enough to buy you a card. When I used to work, every other week somebody was sending around a card for me to sign. I hardly knew any of those people. I would just give my autograph.

Every birthday since I was born my grandmother gives me the amount I am in dollars. It’s sweet. I look forward to it like getting my tax refund. When I was a kid I used the money to boy candy or something. Now I use the money to buy weed. I got a picture taken of me to remember I was fat ass baby.

Every birthday since I was eight years old I do the same routine. I wake up and look in the mirror. I thoroughly examine my body. I look for specific changes. I check to see if my dick got bigger. It still hasn’t. I check to see if my arms are strong by doing the number of push-ups of my age. It was easier when I was twenty but now that I’m thirty something and often hung-over, not so easy. I might just throw up doing my sit-ups. I take a picture of myself.

Every birthday since I was thirteen years old I try to masturbate my age in twenty four hours. Honestly, I stopped that insanity that birthday. I couldn’t piss for two days. I thought my dick was going to fall off it hurt so bad. I take a picture of myself.

Every birthday since I was sixteen I get myself a new outfit. I get new shoes, socks, underwear, pants and shirt. I guess I wanted to feel new again. Or I was still trying to scrub that gooey pussy juice off my body from my mama. I take a picture of myself.

Every birthday since I was twenty one years old I’d get prissy drunk. I mean fall down on your ass --piss on yourself drunk. I mean I hope I make it home drunk. I’m talking angrily eating a sloppy burger like David Hasselfoff on the living room floor drunk. I take a picture of myself.

Every birthday since I was twenty two years old I find myself in AA.

Every birthday since I was twenty five years I find myself unemployed. When I light the candle on my birthday cake, I usually wish for a job.

A lot of things changed when I turned twenty seven years old. I guess I forgot the beauty of a birthday. Birthdays seemed to be arsenal for motherfuckers who weren’t doing enough for me. Those who forgot. Grandma never forgets because I still get that money. I’ve had lovers who didn’t remember until a week or even a month later. My friends because we all live in different cities now after college usually call just so that I can call them on their birthday. It’s like an unspoken agreement. My friend Sha once forgot to call me on my birthday and I never called her on her birthday again. It’s been like five years.

Birthdays for me seemed to become spiteful. I always know somehow or someway somebody is going to fuck it up for me. I know I’m going to get one of those stupid cards that I’m over the hill. I know I’m supposed to laugh but I usually feel like spitting in their face. I can still give one hell of a tantrum that could rival any two-year old or a coked up Naomi Campbell. I stopped getting laid on my birthday. I got into a committed relationship. He doesn’t like it when I drink. I don’t like it when he complains about my drinking. The night usually ends with an argument or maybe the cops.

When I turned thirty years old my sister had a baby. It was a girl. My sister changed overnight. I would’ve once petitioned for that crazy crackhead to never have kids. But when she found out she was pregnant it really changed her life. She got sober. She stayed sober. It was like she found what she had been looking for her entire life and that was to be a mother. I held my niece “Blessing” in my arms. I first thought my sister naming her child some arbitrary name was too ghetto Hollywood. I guess it was better than naming her Mercedes or Lexus like some ghetto mothers do like they are putting together a Christmas list. Or naming your child Denim. For my sister naming her child “Blessing” is what she was feeling at the moment. The child’s middle name is Natalie. I decided I would call her “big head.”

Holding blessing in my arms on the day of her birthday, I couldn’t help but understand what I meant by Happy birthday. It was a blessing. I sung her Happy Birthday, the black Steven Wonders version. I knew I meant that I was welcoming her to the world. I knew I meant I was happy she was now part of it. I knew what I told her happy birthday for the rest of her life I’d remember the day she was born and it was such a happy day. I couldn’t promise her life was going to be easy. But I did promise her that I would send her the number of dollars of her birthdays. She would probably think of me as lame or cheap. I didn’t care.

Today is my 33rd birthday. I got my money from my grandmother. The only people who wished me happy birthday were all the adult porn sites I belong too. It was precious.