My Cardboard Balcony

Tonight's Celebration by Belinda Roddie Sweetheart, blow out your birthday candles and make three extra wishes to keep in your back pocket. When the cake is cut, I'll meet you out on the deck for beer and s'mores, and we'll toast to another twenty more years before this town goes to Hell. Love, kiss me twice before you go back inside, to comb the confetti out of your hair and force a smile for your father. I'll be waiting outside, in this thick dragon breath summer, sipping lukewarm poor man's champagne and marveling at how the amount of stars I see match your age, such a small number, in the grand scheme of things.

You want proof? Proof that I'm a good person? Proof that I was never unfaithful to you? Go fuck yourself. Really? I figured my own words would have more value than your BFF's, or your mother's, or your sister's or brother's. Yet apparently, it's my words against everyone else's. Because they know everything there is to our relationship, huh? Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable.