Pink Birthday - Graison Ray

You were a young child,
in a world that was not prepared for
you to enter it,
by a family who was broken–
who didn’t want you in it.
Sitting in a brown worn-down leather chair,
across sits your therapist.
They ask you,
“Do you have any good birthday memories?”
You say, “It’s complicated.”
In actuality, you simply can’t.

From what you can remember,
each birthday included
spongey, sickly sweet strawberry cake,
pale pink streamers.
No one allowed to be invited in
besides your family
in a dimly lit room
only she controlled.

Strawberry cake that you hate,
pink is the color you were assigned yet despised.
With no one outside allowed to see in,
this wasn’t my birthday, it was hers.

Yet it recurred every year,
on the day.
Your therapist coughs,

covering over your thoughts,
when they ask if you want to
simply talk.

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