happy birthday to me!

happy birthday natasha! today, you’re 20 years old. no more teenage girl, no more bumbling angst… time for carpe diem and stuff. i suppose. two decades seems like a pretty long time, but it hasn’t felt like that. life is only beginning, and nothing could be more exciting than that.

happy birthday natasha. you’ve spent another year making yourself proud. you’ve let yourself down at times - that’s okay. i hope you forgive yourself. you always forget how cool you are, but there’s no need for that today. celebrate it. look at what you’ve done this year - you’re a year older, wiser, stronger. you’ve progressed your career, you’re more confident and sure of yourself and you finally got your eyeliner technique down. and all that aside, you have a spring in your step, and your smile is wider. you’re looking forward to the future. look at you go, building a life you can love. you are kind. that’s amazing. you’re amazing.

happy birthday natasha. listen to that ‘happy’ part - take it seriously. you deserve it.

that’s my birthday gift to myself; to take myself seriously. i’ve looked and longed for something or someone who would make me feel like my writing is worth something. competitions and mentorships and a heavily annotated anthology later, i know this has to come from me. there’s no point underestimating myself anymore; no point in fearing failure when every single word i write is a breath of air.

this is my birthday gift to myself. owning my work, being proud of it, knowing what it’s worth. happy birthday natasha, here; a celebration of the best part of you. i’ve been working on this for some time now, and i’m happy to share it (after much deliberating with myself in the middle of the night lol).

i’ve got some of my recent poems live to read on the website, but there’s more coming - every other week i’ll be posting; new poems, old poems, stories, thoughts… everything. i can’t wait. cheers to 20, cheers to everything before and everything to come :) i love you natasha.