Birthday Girl by Jessica Kim

I’ve always lived in the shadow

of a corner, nightgown drooping like confetti.

The decorations were supposed

to be up by today, but I’m already exploding

into tomorrow. Watching the house

go barren, I shred the uninflated balloons

into skin-scraps. I am shedding

memories like dead skin cells, like the unworn

party dresses in the back closet.

I still have pictures of parties from last year.

Like this: I’m sitting at the dining

table in a store-bought lace skirt, the ones

that only the pretty girls wear.

Smile. Crooked teeth dangling like fingers

of greedy children. I should

know not to poke at the icing on the cake.

Tempted. I should know how

to wait. But time is meaningless when

none of this is real. I confess:

I tore down the birthday banner last night.

I popped all the balloons and ate

the cake in the fridge. This is no time

for celebration. I’m sorry.

Jessica Kim is a disabled poet from California. A two-time 2021 Pushcart nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Wildness Journal, Diode, Cosmonauts Avenue, Grain Magazine, Longleaf Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, and more. She is the founding editor of The Lumiere Review. Find her at www.jessicakimwrites.weebly.com and @jessiicable on twitter.