You would’ve been twenty-five today.
I don’t know what kind of cake you’d want.
Or if you’d roll your eyes at a party—
then secretly hope someone threw you one anyway.
I don’t know if you’d still bleach your hair,
or finally let it grow in dark
like I always begged you to.
If your voice would be lower now,
rasped from cigarettes and city air.
If you’d still call
just to say something absurd,
then stay on the line
until the silence felt like home.
But I know how you’d say my name.
I still have the voicemails.
Dozens.
Each one starting the same—
you dragging out the last syllable
like it was yours to tune,
like it belonged to you,
like no one else would ever say it right.
No one else ever has.
I close my eyes and there you are—
laughing at something only you thought was funny,
your hands warm and weirdly clammy,
your fingers laced in mine
like they were made for it.
I loved that your palms stayed soft—
even when everything else hardened.
You used to put deodorant on at night.
Said it worked better that way.
You were so sure.
I still do it—
not because I believe it,
but because it makes you real
for a second.
Like you’re just in the next room,
holding the stick out to me,
smirking.
Lana wrote a song with your name in it.
Someone sent me the lyrics:
“You were born to be the one
To hold the hand of the man
Who flies too close to the sun.”
She knew.
Lana did too.
It felt like you whispered it to her.
Lorde dropped new music
on the day I didn’t think I’d make it.
That was you, too.
I give you credit
for every small grace
that finds me like it knows where I live.
Everything else is just noise.
I already lost you.
Nothing else compares.
You are the scale.
The ache behind my ribs.
I want to leave you a voicemail.
Tell you I remembered.
Tell you I made a cake.
Just one candle.
Because you’re not here to blow it out.
But some part of me still waits—
even here,
in this apartment you never saw,
on this street you never walked—
some feral, foolish part of me
still believes you’ll knock.
That you’ll smell the frosting,
say my name the way only you could—
high and slow and sure—
and blow the candle out
before I can make the wish.
I’m still here.
And today is your birthday.
And I remember.
Always.
