exit wound

as my birthday (and the milestone) nears, i find

myself worrying, getting

preemptively sad, panicking

about an event

that hasn’t even arrived.

birthdays are like a wound to me—

a shard of glass in the hand, a knife

twisting in your

stomach, a bullet through the

chest. the entrance of the wound

is the growing pains—the

anxiety at the

thought of growing

old, of being someone new

and someone you’ve always been

until the next year.

but this time, there’s—

well, there’s an exit wound, too.

the glass slides through the top of the hand

and spikes through the palm; the knife

twists until you can see it

on the other side; the bullet

comes cleanly through your back.

let me write this out again, be a little

clearer. there’s the date, which is the glass, the knife, the bullet,

then there’s the growing pains, the entrance wound—

and then there’s you. and then, on the other side

of things, there’s the glass again, the knife once more, and the bullet,

come to bite you again, and there’s this feeling

that you won’t be happy

when that day comes

and on the days that follow. there’s this feeling

that no one’s going to

remember, that they’ll forget, and, for some reason,

this feels like a last chance—that if they forget,

if they forget this time, that that’ll be their

last chance. that there’s not going to be

anything else

on the other side.

(but does the glass, the knife, the bullet, do they have to)

(go all the way through? can’t they just)

(rot inside of you?)

and before, all the years before, you

used to be so sad, so anxious, so worried,

and when people forgot (or made like it was)

(any other day, like it wasn’t)

(you being markedly unthesamed), it felt like

glass through the back of your hand,

a knife to the stomach,

a bullet to the chest.

but the wound was only one-sided, and

all you had were growing pains (that healed) and

the memory of being forgotten or

dismissed (that rotted, rotted, rotted, continued to rot inside of you)

again and again and again

each year.

and, yeah, maybe it’s

healthier to have the

glass go all the way through,

or the knife come out on the other side,

or the bullet wink back at you from behind,

but, man, if you don’t feel so sick

for so much longer before. how do you cope

with the thought of it never happening again

when you’ve collected all these scars

from all the years before? how do you cope

with not having the people

who remembered every time

show up again?

this year feels like a year of

lasts and ends and stops and brick brick brick walls. i

feel like, at every turn, i am told

that this is my last

chance, my last turn, my last

time, that i’ll never

feel this way again, that i should

enjoy this while it lasts, because

it’s the last i’ll ever have—and i can’t help but

let any joy i could have had

rot, rot, rot inside of me, clutched in the

grubby hands of anxiety and panic as i

face that this is the

last. the last of it. the last time, the

last point, the end, the stop, that

a brick wall is being built

right in front of my eyes as i’m

told to enjoy the inside, because i’ll be

stuck outside of this wall

for the rest of my life

and i won’t have another chance.

and maybe that’s the exit wound—

maybe it isn’t their last chance,

or yours, but

mine.

maybe this is this year’s

wound: the date, the glass, the knife, the bullet,

then the growing pains, and the entrance wound, and then—

me. and on the other side is the exit wound,

the glass shining back at me, the knife twisted through and

pushed too far, the bullet come back to wink at me, and my

last chance.

maybe that’s the exit wound,

maybe that’s the exit wound,

maybe that’s the exit wound,

(how do you cope)

(how do i cope)

(with the exit wound)