Birthday Cake

I’ve had battered-brand-new shoes and tan lines on my feet from the very same.
I’ve had ruined hoodies and muddy knees from spending too much time with you in parks.
I’ve been pretentious in a German army shirt of 1989 and once too-tight jeans falling by the wayside of my hips.
I’ve bought bargain books on Calvinist theology and paid too much for flipside DVDs.
I’ve been flown to the moon and admired the baggy trackiebottoms and Reebok classics of Alex and the Monkeys.
I’ve cracked my neck in high street store queues and spent afternoons in a ’36 Phantom III.
I’ve heard bands cover obscure rock songs in quaint seaside towns over scones with clotted cream.
I’ve had so much caffeine that I've failed tests and not slept and passed seventeen exams.
I’ve re-written AS English courses so that Zadie Smith is recognized in all true beauty and form.
I’ve bought brilliant books recommended by intelligent boys from dubious media chain stores.
I’ve run almost bare into the ocean with a girl whose affection for me was questionable in its sexual possibilities.
I’ve missed you until it hurt and said things I’ve wanted to bury under the floorboards following the fallout.
I’ve had nights spent in my brother’s bed so I don’t have to see your face once I've felt that I haven’t been true to you.
I’ve had missed deadlines and lazy afternoons, the result of offset priorities.
I’ve been the other side of the river as the elderly come out and the ruined ducks have expected to feed.
I’ve been served as a child, feeling the thrill as I walk away with my loot.
I’ve had overpriced coffee and nearly-missed trains, jumping aboard as it coasts away.
I’ve avoided my mother and father and angered myself lonely in my room with a scalpel.
I’ve set school records and built structurally-poor bookcases instead of thinking of my future.
I’ve let myself down in so many ways and felt lost in class of my peers and cell structure.
I’ve had library fines to match those of Charles I and fought Cadiz over and over again with her.
I’ve woken up to you at my side and had nothing to say, fearing the worst.
I’ve had hair dye and painkillers and ‘supplies’ of a womanly sort, been ashamed at my dependence, but walked regardless with a see though plastic bag.
I’ve had irreplaceable earrings lost in fitting rooms of a child-labour retail mogul.
I’ve had loud music on brand-new earphones and exercised my man-magnetism on hapless young indie boys, several years my senior.
I’ve had whitewashed chairs and Thai food and hunger pains that could kill a horse.
I’ve watched so much television, the content equivalent of hydrolyzed corn starch to my neurons.
I’ve kissed you on a bus and made legends of strangers if only to fuel our conversation.
I’ve had foundation too dark for my skin and eyeliner to make me look older.
I’ve had piggybacks from members of school staff and read books of controversy, not literary greats but amusing to my strange disposition.
I’ve had your brownie crumbs in my bedclothes and I BOUGHT MY OWN DAMN BIRTHDAY CAKE when I realised I was now old enough for no one to care that it was your birthday.
I’ve had seventeen years of life and two months of freedom to show for it.