despite having shaved countless times before,
i still find myself cutting myself
like an amateur butcher
too afraid to go near any major arteries,
connecting me to adolescence
when i learned how to shave for the first time,
when i sprayed on too much axe body spray
to hide the rank sweat smell of the boy’s locker room
from following me home,
well, i guess there are quite a few things that don’t change
when becoming an adult
i thought when i became an adult
i would no longer get acne,
though i don’t know why i thought that,
it’s not like anyone tried to convince me of it,
but i just assumed, i guess,
that acne was an adolescent problem,
like having to go to class to learn things i would not retain,
or having peers snicker at me because of one such thing or another
as i walk down the hallway,
though i suppose high school was just preparing me for
the inevitable train of thought to come,
nothing would change,
but taxes seem strange
i once lied to a girl i liked when i was in seventh grade that i liked nsync
because that was her favorite band and i was hoping that if i told her they were my favorite band too
then she might kiss me behind the k-mart parking lot
where all the kids in my class hung out and smoked weed, after-school-special like,
but instead she shrugged her shoulders, as if it was the most uninteresting opinion in the world,
as if i was the most uninteresting boy in the world,
and she was probably right about that moment,
since i had a difficult time thinking for myself at that age, this age too
Fred Aiken Writing 