On my 32nd Birthday...

It's my birthday! This is what I wrote:

These lines on my face that etch and dig and gouge the history of this skin? They are the memories passed down, my stories brought forth from cell to cell, layer by layer, touch to scar.

They are the furrowed moments that freeze in time, refusing to disappear. They are the unyielding cracks and scars that force new skin, and new life to grow around them, revealing deep knots of muscle, clumps of fat, and shards of bone below.

I crash through this life from my centre to my skin. I rub my layers raw until blood, tears, and semen mix to feel something new. I grow hard, I grow round, I grow old. The fibres of my tissues grow dense in this manifold experience.

I turn 32 today. I have 32 years. I do not own time, and for months, days, weeks, minutes, seconds- I recall the loss of time as it slipped through consecutive moments of missed opportunities.

I fall into a pile of aching joints and slipped discs to realize the unmissed opportunities and the choices I've made.

You have the power to inspire, because you inspire me. I have the honour to inspire, because you look to me.

Forgive my blind and deaf ignorance, because I never saw you looking. The eyes and ears are the first to go as this manifold destiny creates more history.

But these lines on my face draw a map between you and I, leading us through the you and i.

And if this can be said, than this can be true, so that every year and every age that we have, today and always, leads us closer, more raw, and deeper into and through youandi.