Birthdays, when you are old, remind you of the grave,
you see it as a freshly dug hole waiting just for you.
People bring you wine, what else does an old man need?
Guests getting high on wine they brought you and it is all
jolly. I try to join in. Wife has made an effort, candlelight
and so on, guests are people I never see unless meeting
them at a pretentious art exhibition; and I think of my
childhood when birthdays were important, I tell stories
of a past of poverty and need; wife disrupts saying
I should forget about the past, how can I, it shaped me
for what I´m today? Cakes I think of are those I never had
in my infancy; cakes I baked, with condensed milk, when
the captain had his birthday - if he was an as*hole I spat in
the dough - on ships made into nails somewhere in hot
Bangladesh. How tired I´m lost in the past. Guests leave
the old man´s party, but my wife is not stunned when calm
falls, I have to collect the dirty glasses and do the dishes.
