23rd Birthday

I’ve turned 23 today and for some reason this age feels significant to me. 

I didn’t think I’d make it this far. 

They said I wouldn’t make it out of the hospital when I was born.

They said I would not breathe unassisted.

My mother told me I’d die alone in a gutter like vermin.

When I was 17 they said where I had survived clinical death, many others had died.

When I was plagued by madness I thought my only relief would be suicide. 

My life was dictated by an obsession with numerology and shattered by intrusive thoughts of self mutilation. 

When I was 19 I became chronically ill.

I was haunted by hallucinations and sleep paralysis until I was 20. 

Then, when I was 20 I became homeless. 

When I resolved to live I feared God would cut me down and I’d be murdered like the men before me. 

I thought I’d never live past 21. 

I remember I used to have recurring nightmares of dying on Cristina’s birthday.

I feared that right when I saw the light I’d be robbed of it.

I feared one final joke. 

I’ve been hungry.

That came to pass.

I’ve bled.

That came to pass.

I toiled.

That recurs.

That will come to pass too. 

All things come to pass.

I remain. 

I’ve come from nothing.

From pitiful destitution, hatred, and violence. 

I clawed my way to life in the very first place.

I’m wiser, more resilient every day. 

Where my grandfather was stabbed you will need ten million more knives to kill me.

Where my father was shot you’ll need ten million firing squads. 

Perhaps I’m yet to die in a gutter, but I will not be alone. I will be surrounded by great friends of kind and true dispositions.

Like those before me I will not go gently into the night.

I will rage against the dying of the light. 

From 23, you’ll need more than all of that to kill me.