haircuts raze if haircuts had birthdays, she said, i wouldn't celebrate mine. not this one. not ever. i'd punch it right in its pretty little mouth. watch its baby teeth scatter like desecrated pearls torn from the ring around my throat. he said, you wouldn't hit me like that. would you? watch me, she said. 230505 ... ovenbird Her head won’t hold these mortal_coils. I find hanks of humanity everywhere—dark strands clogging the drain, piling up in the corners, getting tangled in the teeth of the radiators. I sweep the remnants into a pile, braid them into long plaits, tie blue ribbons to the ends and run the silky lengths through my fingers. I attach them to my own scalp with sharp combs that scrape my skull. I think I will pass for human with these tresses bouncing against the sharp blades of my back. ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ ✂ In the second grade David held the ends of my pigtails in his hands and whipped me into a gallop. I would whinny and run the length of the field, pulling him along behind me. I thought I was free, even with his weight dragging my eyes to the sky. Years later I cropped my hair so short that no man could ever wind his fingers through tightly enough to control me. Whenever I cut my hair you look at me with wistful disappointment. “I like your hair long,” you say. The next time I cut it even shorter. 250927 what's it to you? who go blather from