I sat in my desk, drawing small cakes on my paper, barely able to sit still.

A huge grin came across my face as I wrote down the date on my paper.
Today was the day every child waits for every year; today was my birthday.
I sat, watching the time pass, no one but a few people have acknowledged.
The bell rings, my mom picks me up due to the fact my dad is out of town.
She tells me happy birthday, but he doesn't.

Nothing, no texts, no surprise visit. My own dad had forgotten my birthday.
It didn't surprise me, he missed my elementary school graduation, why would he bother to remember my birthday?
After all that was the day he regrets the most.
Funny how he regrets it, when he wasn't even there for it.

The autumn breezed by, father not caring, my desperate plea for friends.
I'd be lying if I said I'd forgotten it.
The autumn I was thirteen was the saddest time of my life.
Constant verbal abuse, leaving class to go to the bathroom only to chicken out and come back with a fake smile.
I wore that smile for three years.