birthday wishes

Poem by Alyssa Sandoval

---

i couldn’t have been
the only six-year-old
who scrambled to figure out
what they should wish for
when the crowd started singing happy birthday:
a puppy or a pony?
a boyfriend or a Barbie dream house?
maybe, just keep it simple—world peace?
 
and, at the end of the song,
when the crescendo would rise,
the panic would sink in;
my mind blank,
i would just blow
and watch the white smoke
swirl above the icing
 
a rare opportunity, wasted.
 
at sixteen,
i would gear up in the backseat
of my mother’s minivan: sit up straight,
hold my breath and close my eyes
as we drove through
the lit underpass on 696,
wishing for all the things
i thought would make me happy:
straight As, straight hips,
a car with AC, a boyfriend,
an apology, dad’s return
tried to cram them all in
before we escaped the darkness;
a loophole to my childhood query

i am twenty-eight
when i catch myself
under the same underpass,
and—though i feel different, and older,
more mature and refined—i find myself
caught between indecision and trying-to-cram-
it-all-in
 
there are screams for justice parading down my street,
buzzing like a hive that was poked one too many times
SAYHISNAMESAYHERNAMEICANTBREATHE
 
there are teachers begging for solutions on my front lawn,
asking to be anything but the sacrificial lambs to a virus
we openly admit knowing little about MASKUP6FTAPART
 
there is personal tragedy swept under my doormat,
i watch hope shrivel, shrouded by a doctor’s diagnosis
lives altered in a single prognosis, you seem smaller
every day and i don’t even know if i should wish for
hope or health or healing
 
and when the panic sinks in,
i wish for silence.
 
i know it’s not the mature thing to do
a rare opportunity, wasted,
but, i wish, just for a day,
it would all go quiet
 
that we could relax,
enjoy each other’s company,
—have a barbecue, take a walk--
without the lurking presence
of death at our door
 
i wish
for six-year-old indecision:
a puppy or a pony?
a boyfriend or a Barbie dream house?
problems
that could fit on
the head of a needle
​

About the Writer

Alyssa Sandoval is a writer and high school English teacher from metro-Detroit, Michigan. She currently resides in Ann Arbor with her fiancé, their Golden Retriever, Winnie, and a significant amount of books. You can find more of her poetry on her instagram @knuppcake.