Birthday as defiance

It was three in the / morning and I was drunk / off the ice burst of tap water, deaf / to the / undulating screams of / insomniac chickens, high / off the / pepper-salt of bible / pages on the back of my tongue, / paper cuts in my throat, / down, down.

If I swallowed  / heaven, God might reveal himself / to be real.

I knew I was not meant / to survive nineteen.

I chugged acid love down / my hard-boiled intestines, / yet seraphs snored asleep. / Not a squeak of protest! / Not even a preach. / The moon was a motherly / accomplice, a confidante / burying my secrets / among the stars.

Imagine my surprise.

Imagine my surprise when I / flung my lashes up to cake / and twenty, and I was / empty-handed, shitly prepared, / blank eyes bull-eyed straight / on that calendar date: / July second.

And I was twenty, / and twenty-one, / and twenty-two, / and it was not three a.m., but six.

And I survived nineteen.