not-so-new beginnings.

Happy birthday, Kyle.

You don't care about the fact that you're spending your 16th birthday sleeping through an economics review; a test you're going to fail.
Don't care that the only gift you've gotten was an organic juice that you seemingly don't enjoy, at all.
Don't care that tonight you'll go to your anime club, while we all spent ours lost in floods of balloons.
Don't care that some of us have had five classes per year together since 6th grade, but we didn't know it was your birthday.
Don't care that all we do know is that your water bottle is always full of rum; that your only-ever girlfriend came to dump you mid-class, mid-room.
You don't care that we never manage to show you patience, nor civility. That laughter heading in your direction has only ever been out of cruelty. That teachers don't know your name 6 months in and I look right past your brand new hair cut.
Don't care that you're an under-achiever, only because you've never tasted success.

Except, you probably do.
You probably care more about everything than any of us do.
But still, we look past that. We look past you.
And you care too much to show it.

So happy birthday, Kyle.
My present is non-acknowledgment, because what kind of loser needs a lesson in humility?

Happy birthday, Kyle.
I hope some day you wake up somewhere much better than here.