I feel that in times of celebration, there are times to commemorate those we have lost and mourned.

  I long for my extroverted seven-year-old self, and I swat away the thoughts of ten-years-old.

  I used to demote everything I did. Every quality I possessed. Every characteristic that defined me. Every imperfection. This continued until I didn't have to feel my shackles of humanity.

  It was never worth celebrating something when it was just another milestone in the grand scheme of things.

  Whenever I gaze upon the flickering flames of fleeting light, I do not wish. Instead, I think. I ponder. I wonder. Of what? A life that would never have to age, die, sleep, and eat.

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  I think of immortality, and how terrified I am to die. And I think, why must we have a day that celebrates another year given to the past?

  Instead of wishing, I demand. I demand answers to this thing we call living.

  Yet the breath I use to blow the candles does not answer. It chuckles with the wind in its howling sensation, keeping the meanings and true nature within nature.

  I do not wish for destruction to bring forth a new era. However, I think of the dancing flames of the wick as trees burning in the fiery pits of hell.

  And while children gleefully wish for items to fuel their naivety, I hope for a time where I do not have to gaze upon an angel of death, cursing my existence as a lowly mortal.

  So, in spite of seeing the passion of a forge, if I ponder and inspect close enough, I shall see his tattered cloak.

  And so, I leave you with this: aren't birthdays just another milestone to death?