I took the clippers to my head
And let them buzz a lullaby
As they slowly devoured the costume I donned
Before the advent of my memory.
My entire life, I wandered through
A world that wasn’t mine,
Not knowing the possibilities beyond
Venus and Mars,
Afraid to peer into the vast expanse of space,
Assuming that nothing but frigid, lonely death
Could await beyond the horizon.
Now I watched lines of keratin fall upon tiled floor
And tangle together in a lifeless pile.
Tiny prickles stung my neck
In a final act of vengeance,
While others hid in the fibers of my sweater
To haunt me another day.
Such tiny remnants rarely tend
To be broomed away without battle.
At last, my head lighter,
I embraced the dizziness of freedom,
Staring at fragments of the lie
I never knew that I was telling.
I emerged from my bathroom
As the thunderous echo
Of what had been pushed down,
With truth on my tongue
And air in my lungs,
No longer strangled by ropes hanging
From my own scalp.
As my fingertips ran across bristles
Soft and alive as springtime moss,
I settled into my unbounded body and
Welcomed myself home.
Maddie Kerr is a twenty-one-year-old sociology student at Northwestern University. Previously unpublished, they have recently returned to their childhood past time of poetry to distract themselves from the looming reality of adulthood. When they aren’t studying, they are most likely staring off into Lake Michigan.