Birthday

I am moving to a new city soon

and I wish I could gather my soon to be friends in a room

and plant the seed of who i was

so they can watch how i’ve bloomed

explain that I might not always be that brilliant flower

but that often i cower and hide in the bower,

and that I am a being of the breeze,

my strength comes from solar power

I want to draw pictures on the wall

so that I can show them all the ways I know I trip and fall,

break out the baby books and movie reels of memories

and let them take a look at every time I had to crawl

I want them to appreciate my past

not see it as an emotional cast, but as something my soul can outlast

for even when my darkest memories cloud cover my summer

I never surrender happiness and fly my flag at half mast

I want to make sure that my friends

know the difference when I say

I’m good

and I’m good.

I want them to now the difference between

the smile on my face and the smile in my eye

so that when it comes to the moment

when I feel I have to cry,

they aren’t the slightest bit surprised

unlike I will be on the day of my twenty first birthday

when they through me a party to celebrate

the last yearly day that can grant me rights

because everyone knows, after twenty one nothing else matters,

and on that night, I will drink from the cup of gratitude

laced with some I’m happy to be alive

even if I am still the only sober one at the bar

because then, it will be legal.

And that night, I’ll take each of my friends aside

and tell them how happy I am with the way they’ve bloomed

because each and everyone is a beautiful flower

and each and every one deserves a loving reminder

that no matter how dark a past, the sun is shinning

and no matter how bloody their knees have been,

everything’s healing

and if the day shall come, that they got knocked off their feet again,

I will be right next to them, kneeling.