it was my birthday;

it was my birthday
may fourth nineteen eighty seven.
this year i turned twenty-three.
did you even think about me?
did i even cross your mind
even for just a second?

what did you do, i wonder
have you forgotten me.

i haven't forgotten you
but i don't care for you
not really
and i am entitled to do so.

you, on the other hand
do not have a choice.

in a cruel way
i want you to remember
to be pained at the knowledge
that you never got to see me grow up
because of your selfish choice.

in a cruel way
i want you to know that you died
a very long time ago
as your new persona was birthed
from the smoke from which you lit
possibly your first taste of the darkness.

i want you to know that you hurt me
beyond what my memories can recollect.

i want you to know that i hated you once
so very much.
that i wanted you dead
i wanted you deported
i wanted the blood that ran through my veins
to drip onto the dirt ground
where i felt it belonged.

but now, i do not hate you
but i do not love you either
and i still have not forgiven you.

i have, however, come to terms
and only recently.
that person who was once in my life
is dead.
that is how i see it as you are definitely
not who you used to be
not for seventeen years.

many may forget their past
the details of their early lives.
just a fuzzy haze.
but i remember quite a lot
in vivid detail
and even the sounds.

but i wish to only focus on memories that happened
before your 'death'
quotations as you are still very much alive
i assume.

memories from when happiness was abounding in my life
where love bursted from the seams of its container.
the memories after are still fond
but without you in them.

and although i try my hardest not to
i fantasize how things might have been
once upon a time in the future.

what kind of person would i have become
would i be the same
or would i be completely different
on a track of sex and drugs
not healthcare and education.

so maybe, i am to thank you for leaving
for no longer being in my life
because perhaps without you in it
i have become far better than i ever could have imagined.

so now maybe i have come to a decision
to shut the door on that one part of my past.
it is over now anyway, isn't it?

it's time to say goodbye
and hopefully for the very last time.