all i remember is your birthday (well, happy birthday, anyway)

Hello! I'd like to start by saying I'm super duper new here, so this probably won't be the best review ever, but I thought it might be a good idea to review other writers' work to put myself out there!

This poem is so beautifully written. I saw someone say they felt like an intruder reading it, and I couldn't agree more. It reads like an excerpt from a diary, in the best way! I feel like I'm actually inside your poem with this awesome sauce imagery you have going on. It's all working very well!!! The ending, too is soooo emotional. Anwayssss thank you so much for sharing this masterpiece!!!

im gonna cry this is so beautiful??? this feels like a really intimate and personal poem, i feel like an intruder reading this haha... but it's so good, i love the imagery, i can imagine everything so properly. it's a pretty bittersweet poem though, and it's so personalized (is this like a letter formatted like a poem or something LMFAO) it's a pretty simple poem, but it's really pretty (how do i explain this??) im so curious about this person and the writer's relationship with them. i really liked reading it. keep writing & good day!

Hello,

A first-time reviewer here. I have been procrastinating on posting feedback because I often find myself lacking the skills and experience when it comes to reviewing poetry. So, I really hope I am starting off on the right note. Feel free to guide me

This is so heartbreaking. I find it rather ironic that the poem is centred around a birthday, because one would expect something celebratory just by looking at the title. But this work, on the other hand, feels deeply mournful.

It almost reads like an elegy, where you mourn the loss of someone, or perhaps something, that once meant the world to you, and now, in their absence, a day that was once significant has become just another day.

There is something especially painful about that transformation: when a date that once carried so much meaning is reduced to simply a reminder of what is no longer there.

Kudos to you! I would love to read more from you <3

Hey Juke!
Queenie here a rev today.... so close to my next star.
First of all , this poem is absolutely incredible! I loved it so much, even though I could not relate to it, mainly because I do not have a sister who's birthday I can celebrate! Anyway, back to work!

Praise:
I loved these parts:

(you never ripped the presents open; you always handled them with love
i wish you’d done the same for me)

our legs were tangled beneath the bedcovers,
and you shrieked whenever my cold skin touched yours
you were always the warmest,
your shampoo-smelling curls sprawled across your side of the bed

Hello!
I'm going to start this with a little bit of a disclaimer, I've been out of the reviewing scene for awhile and the writing scene a little bit as well so this may not be super detailed or really great feedback, but I will try my best.
I'll start off with the title. Very intriguing and fits very well, (I point that out as someone who really, really isn't good at coming up with titles ) The part in parenthesis is a little jarring but I understand why it's there. The first three paragraphs sound like the narrator is talking to a significant other rather than a family member, but then it's cleared up with the
"we giggled the way all sisters did," line. Personally I didn't find it confusing and I like the versatility, as someone could read this and still feel/understand it without having any siblings. I can also see how it might be confusing for someone else though, but that's just an assumption on my part.
Is the narrator close with their sibling or is the relationship tense? It is hard to tell and maybe that's intentional, I don't know.
The lines:
"mine was a season behind yours,
but you never wrote it down."
and
"(you never ripped the presents open; you always handled them with love
i wish you’d done the same for me)"
Really hint at a tense relationship, or is this how the narrator is expressing the wish that the person had stayed?

Lastly, as someone who lost a sibling at a pretty young age, this poem really hits a string I could never really describe myself. It's interesting how sometimes everything else kinda fades away but the date remains, stronger than everything else.

I really enjoyed this and I hope this wasn't too confusing!