MEMOIR
The Patron Saint of Losers
My worst birthday ever.
I guess I was the Patron Saint of Losers.
Cinderella dressed in yella…
At least that’s what it felt like.
Went upstairs to kiss her fella…
One by one they all found a reason to leave.
By mistake…
One by one they went home.
She kissed a snake…
And on my 11th birthday, I stood holding my jump rope there on the corner alone.
How many doctors will it take?
And I cried.
One, two, three, four, five, six…
One by one, they all went home.
I wish I could say events like this that happened a lifetime ago to a little girl I have long-since abandoned didn’t affect me today and didn’t leave a mark. In truth, it’s the small bruises in life that sometimes leave the most long-lasting scars and sometimes you don’t even remember how they got there.
I’m hard-pressed to put into words exactly why birthday parties are so upsetting to me. They just are — always have been. I guess it comes from one of those little scars. A scar that highlights my contradictory nature growing up — Holly…
