Birthday

It’s nothing special — 
I’ve been born before,
and borne through time

on my father’s
back. His sharp
shoulder blades

dig into me still.
My mother smiled
through lukewarm

tears when I was
born, and named
me after dead people

I would never meet.
When I was two, I
was taught our names

for all the animals;
and I began to see
the nature of marked

flesh and splintering
bone — an identity I

gleaned and celebrated
in a bonfire

of gentle squeals and
warmed voices. But to measure

ourselves in relation
to worms and hawks
and elephants’ tears —

Is that what we do?
We grew cold to the world
and sometime in the past,

stripped and incinerated
and belittled and stole.
What do I signify

in a religion I no
longer understand?

Where does the I
in myself take place?

Today, I honor my
Self, for holding on,
for understanding

it does not take
the whole of us,
or a single birth,

to forge an identity.
I will finish this yet,
and yank the splintered

bones of apathy
out of my heart
and into my back,

if it kills me
But still —

to me, today is nothing
special.