Happy Birthday

Sometimes I wouldn’t mind a little cyanide in my Tylenol, 

I wonder if I’ll live long enough to make a daughter

and I’m never sure which side of birthdays I’m celebrating—

the years getting shorter, fewer, and lumpy coming up,

or to look back at the ones gone by like I’ve already died—

happy that there’s less of them, happy that they’re gone.

I meant to leave you with something uplifting here,

an expression of gratitude to please God and my fellows

but regret is in my diagnostic material

and my daughter is yet unborn.

Robbie Hammel is a writer from North County San Diego.