My birthday cake sat in the kitchen for three days before I remembered it was mine. I bought it Tuesday morning on autopilot, the same vanilla sheet cake I've gotten for four years running, but when I got home I kept waiting for someone else to cut it. The calendar notification said "YOUR BIRTHDAY" but felt like software error - like my phone was confused about whose device it was operating. I blew out the candles alone Wednesday night, making the same wish I made at twelve years old, and realized I couldn't remember a single birthday wish coming true since then.

When I looked at the cake afterward, there were two sets of bite marks in it, but I live alone. Tuesday's photos show me smiling at restaurants I never went to, tagged in birthday posts by people using old pictures where I look nothing like I do now. The cake molded in my refrigerator while I answered "thank you" messages to people celebrating someone who stopped existing sometime between 2019 and now. My reflection in the kitchen window looked confused, like it was waiting for instructions on how to be happy. Who taught you to perform gratitude for a life you can't remember choosing? What do you do when your own birthday feels like attending a stranger's funeral?