Thursday 30 April 2020

Cake.

Sliding into a muted birthday weekend here, muted, dulled by the shadow of a pandemic blocking out the light, making it hard to make plans, making it hard to be me, unless defined by Lochlan's explanation in which I dance in a circle made by their hands, from a young age til now, in an ever-widening space in which the grass is soft and green and tangled with flowers. I can spin and spin and spin in the rain and I can't get hurt, even if I fall. They won't catch me, as they don't break the perimeter, they won't break the bond, they won't let go but I can get up and keep going, forever, as they watch me, watch over me.

That's beautiful, I tell him as I smack my black rye toast, fucking hideously annoyed and spoiled rotten and anxious to do everything from have breakfast at Trolls to ride the rides inside my brain to not have to spend the day shovelling soil, delivered from a place out of town but in huge quantities for my gardens.

Peanut. That's all he has to say sometimes and I understand I'm being unreasonable. I just want a birthday like the others have been. Magical. Without equal. We can defer-

No! It has to be the right day! I continue to smack my toast, wallowing in my annoyance. It's the only thing I have left to do.