Galal El-Behairy is a poet, lyricist, and the 2025 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award Honoree. He was arrested on March 5, 2018 by Egyptian authorities for his writing and later sentenced to three years in prison by a military court. Despite completing this sentence, the Egyptian government continues to bring new charges against him, keeping him behind bars.
Today, Galal turns 36. He wrote this poem for his birthday – his ninth consecutive birthday spent in a cell.
My Birthday
Written by Galal El-Behairy
Translated by Chip Rossetti
Half is gone by
Half has died
Half slipped silently through my fingers
Without me feeling it
Or breathing it in
Half is gone by
All that’s left is a mirage
In the mirror of the soul inside the body
In time that brings me patient endurance
As if I were an onlooker in a cemetery
Half of it is finished
Half of it is done
The one who is still here is certain proof
Of the one who is dead.
This night is like all the nights
That are all the same
Except for their deep black color.
And the doors of a prison cell
Like the prison cell itself
Are only wide enough
For you to turn back, cramped.
But that is another dream.
The space between my fingers burns
Within my ribcage—a bitter fire.
Tonight was my birthday
I wish I could have been there
If only I could have been there
Free… released
There were no candles
No song
No voice singing off-key
But happy.
There was no mirror
I could look into and discover
Gray hair creeping slowly
Over my chin while black
Retreats in defeat.
My darling comes in. She says
“Why the grim face?
Lighten up, boy,
Tonight’s a party!”
But there was no party
No smiling faces
No star falling from the sky
Giving up its place for a wish.
And my innocent heart
Didn’t have within it a trip down the road
Or a stiff shoulder
After a wink from a friend.
An angel there
Waiting for someone to keep him company
Said, “Mister, your step
Is a crowd of people with spirit.
Have courage!”
But the truth is…
Nothing happened.
The night was like all the other nights
Except…
When it ended
I was moved.
Old, old things
That I had scrubbed clean,
Their time had passed and gone.
Among them,
Hope betrayed me.
Me, who thought
I’d lost the last bit of it
At the final prison gate.
Hope betrayed me.
A childish frustration at not getting
Wonderful presents
(All presents are wonderful)
And at not
Hearing everyone’s flattery,
So much flattery!
Everything that passed by long ago
Counts for nothing next to what is still to come
And is still alive.
Many things
Are waited for, maybe forever,
But we have a day like no other:
I am a thousand years younger
Than this number
And I still have time
In my life
That comes to a thousand years
And a similar amount
Of things to say.
