Everyone’s trying to remind me
about the special occasion
– just alarm after alarm
on my all my devices
beeping minute after moment
with signifiers displayed on every banner I can see.
I don’t know why
the world is making it my business
about what it is they want to remember.

What if I don’t care?
What if I am not involved?
What if I don’t know anyone
or don’t want to learn anything
or just have better things to do?
Your cause needn’t be mine,
you know?

I might be an island.
I might be done with all of it.
I might be ready to call it quits
with what you call civilization
and not give a snot
about who wore it worst
or the last season of the Bang
or whose birthday it is this week
and not want to sign anybody’s card or anything

– and my phone just beeped in the middle
of writing this
to remind me again
about Em’s birthday
so there you go.
Happy birthday, Em.