I Shaved My Head

I shaved my head in the sink
I left the water running
I watched my hair block the drain
And on the bathroom's flooding ground
Built no ark for myself
I longed for end times coming
I understood what it meant
To need to kill to reset
This stranger standing reflected
With my old image blending
Inside the mirror before me
The death of self portended by
All the years that I spent closing my eyes
To try to change what I'd become now in life
To die and start again

I fixed my eyes on the light above
The level rising
And let it swallow me whole
All gaps from floor to ceiling closed
Up and onto my neck
The steady water flowing
Then climbing over my head
I shut them tight to accept

As if in amber suspended
Both arms and legs extended
The pressure bending the glass
Then shattered out and down I went
Forces pulling to the surface of earth
Like some raptured body played in reverse
To start and die again

Two summers past
At the bathroom sink and standing
Shirtless cutting my beard
You came in to sit and talk
I watched you watch in the mirror
Brought the trimmer grinning up to my head
Said: Hey I'd never have to pay to get my hair cut again
Nervous laugh
Said: You wouldn't
Interrupted when the trimmer lowered
Fistfuls of hair falling softly down
To the floor before you

And you cried for a minute when I did
Like a child who saw their father for the first time
With a shaven face

A subtle change
A sudden stranger

Made and then betrayed
The shape turned unfamiliar

First I thought you were scared
That I could never grow it back again
Now I see at least six months passed
Since you'd recognized me

A decade spent dissociating
Backwards from the past
Inside alive and laughing
Still

A minor change in desperation
A minor change in desperation
The mirrored shape my bent reflection made

Shaved my head to force a change

To be un-recognized