Today I wanted to share with you something different than my usual content. For next week I’m planning regular post.
Poetry isn’t something I write too often, because I rarely have the idea to make a good piece, especially in languages that aren’t my native. As for birthdays, it’s not that I completely dislike them, both when it’s someone’s or mine - I just thought it would be a good idea making a poem out of the digest of disadvantages of bdays heard from people around me or my own. Although I’m happy receiving wishes and having everybody make it unforgettable, I like it being just once a year. Even if it’s a challenge sometimes, surprising my loved ones with gifts or cakes and seeing their joy makes me happy too. Also spending time together with family and friends is great, regardless of whose anniversary it is.
Another thing is meeting the requirements of “poem that doesn’t look like poem”, as I like to describe free verses. I hope you’ll like it.
I don’t like birthdays for…
I don’t like birthdays for
This constant reminder
That I’m not getting any younger
That I’m drifting further every day
Sprinting towards yet another anniversary.
***
I don’t like birthdays for
This small yet persistent fear
That something bad will happen on my joyful day
That will ruin it and make celebrating it problematic
Just like Smolensk Air Disaster did to my friend Filip.
***
I don’t like birthdays for
This awkward feeling that comes to some
When everybody sings for them “happy birthday”
When they don’t know what’s the right thing
To do with themselves.
-
Commenter on YT said: “In that brief moment
You get a sample of knowledge
About how the British Monarch may feel
About the time when people around sing the anthem:
«God save our gracious… me»”.
-
And when you sing it you realize
Despite your best efforts
How bad your voice sounds
How creepy and false the singing goes
But at least you tried making the birthday person happy.
***
I don’t like birthdays for
This fear of making an undesired present
Which might happen despite your best knowledge and efforts
Which might make your credibility as close person questionable
And fill the birthday person with sadness or false joy.
***
I don’t like birthdays for
Especially when mates’ or mine memory fails
Leaving it up to Facebook to remind about
Leaving some wishes in there for friends
Often knowing they won’t do the same in return.
***
I don’t like birthdays for
This surrounding pressure
That as birthday boy I’ll have
That everlasting party mode
And remain wilding out for long.
-
Just like on New Year’s Eve
When the whole world and that day’s convention
Expects you to party like there’s no tomorrow
And you just want to be conscious on the next day
Because one lap around the Sun isn’t such a big deal for you.
-
And when the roles will swap
Making them the birthday person
It might be me making the pressure
It might be me overlooking their well-being
And causing them unwanted discomfort.
***
Granted
Spending time together with family
And peers feeling it would be nice
To not be rude on your special day
Makes me somewhat look forward to it.
-
Same applies to
When I feel I’ve hit the bullseye
Preparing my surprise gift or cake
For someone important to me
After doing a small and quiet research on them.
***
But there’s another occasion to celebrate
As Polish concept of celebrating namedays
Has this huge advantage over birthdays
That one’s current age is relative
When next anniversary comes by.
-
It was also not too long time ago in here
More popular to party on one’s patron’s holiday
Being a small boy I struggled to understand that
In people’s minds both one’s birthday and nameday
Were equally important to celebrate.
***
But all in all
These are the thoughts of folks and me
That I heard or discovered myself
That made some of them say
I don’t like birthdays for…
In various places, February 2024
I liked your free style poem! Btw, all my poems are free style. I hate to constrain my ideas by trying to find a rhyming word.
Excellent free verse! Not all poetry needs to rhyme, or follow pedantic phrasing. I thought your poem perfectly expressed the ambivalence of celebrating birthdays after ‘a certain age’ keep writing!!!