5/30/10

Birthday Diaries
By Jay Coral


Day 1
I will be turning thirty tomorrow. Birthday plans are in order, even though I don’t really feel like celebrating. Family will be coming from out of town to be in town to be with me. I had contemplated refusing their company but I was too slow to come up with a better excuse. I will not be alone, for sure.

Day 2
Lunch at the pier was good and everyone was all out digging and dirtying their hands. We talked little, I assumed because they did not want to ruin my birthday by bringing up my bachelorhood, and they were hushing, mouths full or not, because they could always banter me up during less special occasions.

My uncle came in later that night. I was in my pajamas when I opened the door and beheld his horsey guffaw. “I don’t do gift wraps” he pulled a stunning hooker (an ex-girlfriend who owed him a special favor I later learned) from behind the trees and shoved her body to mine and her weight upset my balance. And before I can even say “stop”, she was all over me like a hammer. “Wake up now and let me fuck you good.”
　
Day 3
“You are not getting any." I don’t know if I will be mad or be thankful to my uncle, sitting on my couch and smoking like some playboy mogul this morning.

“But I do."

“You lack the killer instinct, boy.” He goes on to explain in his amateurish Jungian way how I like to say yes on my murderous mind but am afraid to do the bloody crime. He is so convinced with himself that he never elaborates his point nor will he take any of my adjudications. “Be like me,” his voice more of a command. “Be like you?“, I zip my mouth faster than I can restrain my thought, letting my hidden shame linger and I let it be.
　
Day 4
I was not born yesterday, nor was I virgin, but being secretly embarrassed has a way of gutting the entrails of my corner-tucked pride. I was unabashedly seeing a young man encapsulated by emotional failsafe. What I had and always have are animal lusts spread to drunk and sorrow-drowning skin, what I give and receive are libidinous consolation for being in a bachelor limbo, “But I do”, I want to shout it on my uncle’s face but I feel I deserve to be mocked.
　
Day 5
Thirty is the vanishing midway point. Either I embrace loneliness for being happily alone or I am courting companionship just so I will not feel lonely.

“But I don‘t”, I don’t even know where I stand.

“But I do”, I can hear myself lying under my breath.


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Jay Coral was once 30, 24, and 18 years old. He likes how age descends from his memory and how his spirit uplifts everytime he reminisces them. He presently posts stuffs on http://bluejayeye.blogspot.com/