because what's actually worth celebrating? well, i always celebrate another bunch of words, another litre of ***, and, most obviously: another tomorrow.*

for a long time now i have
seized to celebrate
birthdays...
    only this year have
i stopped "celebrating" easter:
coming from a traditionalist
family,
   with my great-grandmother
dead for several years
everyone in the family
joked: she said enough prayers
for all of us...
  my great-grandfather
   took the micky out her in
that lovingly joking way anyway
he used to say:
  you and your crows (priests,
that's the slang term for
a priest in poland) -
      i can't remember
  the last time i celebrated christmas,
or should it be called:
adverts from november through
to january marketing mecca
"holiday"?
    but it breaks my heart
with regards to birthdays,
   i don't celebrate it -
    fair enough up to 25...
but a bit like receiving voting rights,
i think people have the potential
to relinquish their celebration
of something that's cake-worthy
once the teenage years end...
nonetheless...
    on the dot,
         i receive the phone call
on the day...
    my grandparents...
      wishing me this that & the other...
and... that's it!
         it's actually more painful
to receive that phonecall,
   than to receive: no phonecall
with besh wishes and what not.
   i grew out the candles,
  the balloons...
                   what is to be celebrated,
may i ask?
              as the cliche says:
women lie about their age anyway,
if they found a way to avoid
the celebratory antics -
    me? i'm just waiting for my
grandparents to die...
             cruel, i know,
   but it's much more cruel to receive
a phonecall from them,
"wishing" me a happy birthday...
   day like any one...  
now, if i remembered squeezing past
the genital skin of my mother...
that would be something...
thankfully, man's faculty of memory
and therefore being conscious
comes much much later,
                 thank god for that.