Today is the last day I’ll ever be 29 years old.

I’m almost 30, and I ain’t got a damn thing to show for it. Couple’a scars from work accidents and dog bites, callouses on my hands and feet. Not one smart thing to say and nothing of value to contribute with in a conversation. I’m good for working a field, and no damn thing else.

And I sure as hell ain’t got you, neither. And that’s my own damn fault.

I’m a booze-bag, do-bad, burnout, dead drunk. I’m bad luck. I can’t stay around anybody for longer than a month. Or in your case, a year. Sometimes I hate it, my lack of patience; how sometimes love feels like a noun in some new foreign language. Now my heart is bent and worn so thin…

God, I’d do just about anything to bring you back to me. To hell with that, I’d do fuckin’ anything. But how the hell could I ever get you to see past who I used to be? How could I ever gain back your trust?

What if I told you that I got sober? That I got older? That I'm strong again, I'm fun again. Would you love me then?

But what if you saw me, what if you hate me? What if I'm failing, or mentally ill? Would you call me crazy? Would you let me in? Would you love me then?

The best I can do is sit quietly at a bar next to you, slumped over onto the counter. My birthday present from you; glasses of spirits until I can’t feel my sorrow anymore. Old love songs scratch out of the record player and they make me want to put a bullet through my skull. I wanna get mad and ask why you’d bring me here on the day that marks the end of my wasted youth, and not even speak to me the whole time.

But it’s not your fault that my brain is vacant. It’s not your fault that the world is trash and my dumbass just got completely wasted. You washed your hands of all my sins. Have I lost you, then?

If you look back and you hate my past, or if you hate my ass, just know I’m doing everything that I can.

My words slur before they even come out of me. They are muffled by the countertop.

“My whole life… could’a sworn I would die young.”