Lyric

There used to be circles

Around the days I came

Red ink like a promise

Holding space for my name

The kitchen wall watched me

Grow taller, then leave

Now every month hangs open

Like it forgot to grieve

No one crossed me out

No one asked me to stay

Unmarked

I found my birthday plain

No little star

No call before the rain

Unmarked

The day I should have come

Still passed through the house

And belonged to no one

A train time in pencil

Had faded near June

Beside an old appointment

For something we never moved

Your handwriting got lighter

Year after year

Like even the calendar

Was learning to disappear

The house kept the hours

But not why they mattered

Unmarked

I found my birthday plain

No little star

No call before the rain

Unmarked

The day I should have come

Still passed through the house

And belonged to no one

Maybe this is how it happens

No thunder, no goodbye

Just a square left empty

Where I used to be expected

Maybe love grows tired

Of writing you in advance

Maybe absence becomes normal

When nobody makes a mark

Unmarked

I stood beneath my name

No little star

No proof that I had changed

Unmarked

But I felt it in my chest

A blank day can hurt

More than all the rest