Birthday? Don’t recall having an “official” Day
Posted on: May 24, 2024
Why did you come back, dear Birthday?
Note: I wrote this poem in 1999 during my birthday in the USA (Montgomery County, Maryland) and posted it 9 years later.
1. Why did you come, dear Birthday?
I am no longer sixteen and I do have my driving license.
No longer eighteen to run away from home,
I am way passed my twenty-first,
To mind ordering a drink if I cared.
2. I don’t need you anymore: you are a liability,
A debilitating memory, a shame to the living youth.
They still show reruns of your comings on the screen:
People hiding in the dark, waiting to catch a stunned face;
Sneaking through the door;
Surprise!
It is not funny for me:
No one ever surprised me at your coming. Not once.
3. Each year you tap on my door.
The month of May trails fragrance, pageantry, and life.
Why May parade is cut short?
Why May never ends in pomp?
I don’t remember any of my birthdays before twelve.
I was in a Christian private boarding school,
A remnant of the discarded
Of parents visiting summer time, once every two years.
On birthdays parties in my honor, it never felt mine,
But you made sure my Friend, to remind me of my loneliness.
Friend, you’ve been consistent through the years,
The best and the worst of years.
Sure, you are welcomed
Every year, any year, my Friend
Among the living.
Note: It turned out that my birthday on May 24 coincides with the eve of Lebanon liberation (Yawm al Ta7rir) from Israel occupation of the southern region in 2000, and without any pre-conditions, after 23 years of occupation. Thus, there is no way I may forgot my birthday anymore.
Adonis Diaries 
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