untitled
by Maria Anderson
I have lived for twenty years, double x
(but not yet triple)
though I have slept away half of that,
and now
I am going to shave my head
because
grey hairs are beginning to grow there.
It's embarrassing.
I haven't even had sex yet,
well, technically,
and I have the head of a mid life crisis?
But shaving my head
is a mark of intensity, and also I think
my scalp will breathe better this way
because my thoughts for a while have been choked
and my eyes sometimes cross
and the words rearrange themselves on pages.
Others think I'm strange, and I carry this
strangeness like a third breast.
They know my mind is choked
and weird,
and that I usually mix things up
and answer too slow.
My head will be bare and strange,
and oh how they'll stare!
I am excited at the prospect of denial
because tomorrow I get to tell myself that
they're staring at my bald scalp and odd ears
and not at me.