Birthday

On this birthday
I sit on the nexus

enlightenment and rage
pain and bliss
denial and engagement
emotion and thought
masculine and feminine
lost and found
being and not being
wounds and healing

live in the liminal
hurting like hell
and
wise like heaven
in
the same decrepit body.

happy birthday to me, eh?

pass the vodka
and
pray the beauty
for me.

and tico-tico plays on
while that damn gwen araujo movie flicks on lifetime
abject and reduced to
pap

happy. . .