for the better

i watched the little dead pieces of me slide down my chest and
crawl slowly to the base of the chair to the floorboards to the dustpan
this is a lot healthier she said it will grow faster now she said and
she was probably right.

the hastily scrubbed mirror reminded me that
the suburban girls would recognize this haircut from sophomore year but
people come and go i had told myself it’s the nature of things i had repeated and
my neck itched when i struggled to remember their names.

i lost my sun-bleached dead ends but my hair felt lighter so
maybe her rust-ridden scissors had equalized something somehow like
a trade – hastily chopping childhood strands for my general wellbeing like
lighting fields on fire or whatever my 7th grade teacher had said about regeneration

slash-and-burn he had called it but
i’ve forgotten his name too

i watched the little dead pieces of me slide down my chest and
crawl slowly to the base of the chair to the floorboards to the dustpan
this is a lot healthier she said it will grow faster now she said and
she was probably right.

the hastily scrubbed mirror reminded me that
the suburban girls would recognize this haircut from sophomore year but
people come and go i had told myself it’s the nature of things i had repeated and
my neck itched when i struggled to remember their names.

i lost my sun-bleached dead ends but my hair felt lighter so
maybe her rust-ridden scissors had equalized something somehow like
a trade – hastily chopping childhood strands for my general wellbeing like
lighting fields on fire or whatever my 7th grade teacher had said about regeneration

slash-and-burn he had called it but
i’ve forgotten his name too

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