i let my hair grow out,
but not because i wanted to,
it’s just because i cut my own hair,
partly to save money,
but mostly because it feels like a challenge,
and it gives me an opportunity to get
to know the landscape that is my head,
the grooves, the bumps,
reacquainting with old skateboarding injuries,
the surgery that had me bedridden for three months,
the time my 3rd grade crush laughed
at how big my head was when she handed out
baseball hats that were given to her for free because her uncle
was the accountant of some minor league team,
so of course i got self-conscious that my head was way too big
for my body,
which led me to start wearing clothes, in particular shirts,
that were too big for me,
in order to give the impression
that my head isn’t all that big for my body,
that my head is reasonably proportional to the rest of me,
though when my cousin found out about what my 3rd grade crush had said about my head,
she went and punched her in the noise
before exclaiming, ‘your nose is now too flat for your face!’
all of which is to say,
i don’t like when people touch my head,
so i just go ahead and cut my own damn hair
Fred Aiken Writing 