This is for Ellie Hoov's Wonderland Challenge (Unbirthday) and Vocal's I Didn't Say That Out Loud Challenge-not for the kids.
How's singing a birthday poem to your non-self?
A non-existent self.
🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀
No cake, nor candles.
I've never had a party--
Nameless, my heart whispered--
Then it
Grew soft
and distant.
🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀
Each year, the day comes
Like a stray cat that haunts
Its constant meows
Filled with pained memories
Simply asking
To be seen.
🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀
It's not a birthday--
But an unbirthday
Places set for two
One for me
One for the one who
Wasn't.
🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀
My loss doesn't scream
It drones
Behind the walls
It taps
Its name unspoken
But answered.
🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀🎂🕯️🪦👁️🗨️🖤🎭🫥🎁❓🔮🔕🫀
Original poem by Michelle Liew.AI tags are coincidental.
About the Creator
Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin
Hi, i am an English Language teacher cum freelance writer with a taste for pets, prose and poetry. When I'm not writing my heart out, I'm playing with my three dogs, Zorra, Cloudy and Snowball.
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Comments (7)
Like a lost memory tickling the edges of one's mind, never quite forgotten, never far behind. Lovely, Michelle
This is hauntingly beautiful! The unbirthday concept hits so deep, like a quiet ache. 🖤
Intriguing poem… I was thinking like Susan, maybe a twin who died in utero.🤔
Was the one who wasn’t a twin? This came to my mind.
Very creative (and brings back memories), thankyou for sharing xx
Its sad to never have had a birthday..but it's never too late to give oneself a treat. Birthday for one is still a birthday..
Wow I love this poem it’s amazingly true to so many of us 💙