a birthday wish for someone distant

it’s your birthday.
i don’t talk about you anymore, not to anyone.
I keep you at bay instead,
keep your memories out and my veins closed
and wish the same for you.

i wish the same and more for you.

i’ve stopped wishing you’d come back into my life,
work through the pieces with me
between your red walls and the things we scrawled,
ink flowing freely across the empty surfaces.

no, those days are gone.
do you still picture me in green-carpeted basements
with woodpanelled walls,
ugly flowered curtains and nothing to lose?
places that don’t exist now,
torn up and replaced by a more aesthetically discerning mother of two?

or maybe you don’t picture me at all,
maybe i only wish that minimum of an homage to the years.
maybe i’m just a phantom occasionally brought to life
by images of childhoods out of focus in your fogged mind.

i only wish you a peace you never knew in all that time that you shared yourself with me.