Sickness & Rot

When I cut my hair off, I thought I looked sick. 

Under all the sticky-up blonde was just sickness, and death. 

I thought about returning to the places I’d left but realized I couldn’t or I’d encounter sickness and death. 

Community is impossible to create in a place that can’t retain it. Where people stay and always go. 

Life is nestled in between two families -- life locked. 

Hair falls out when your adrenals start to drain it. 

Follicles nestled into rot.

No one can stay, and then you also must go. A shame to be left out, a shame to be left alone. 

I am sick of being there, I am sick of wearing underwear, I am sick of looking at rectangular squares and cranes.

I look out of my window, every single day, but still a tree there is not. All the aluminum is hot, and it glows in the summer. And with me a lover is not!

I only stayed for the summer because of my lover, but only I remain.

My lover was a bummer who got in the way, and now I am forced to stay.

I shaved off my hair because of the summer

And because it held memories. 

It’ll grow back one day, but I hope it delays.

I’m not ready for my full power. 

And the dread of my memories.

The sickness can stay. 

It keeps the bad ones away. 

And I know it will help me get better. 

I’m sorry you're dismayed. 

I won’t stop anyway. 

I am dedicated to getting better.

When I knew I was gay, 

I was too scared away, from the prospect of living my life in a gutter. 

My family wasn’t gay, and they would have been dismayed. 

So I kept this part of me undercover. 

Now that my family’s not here, I can finally be queer. 

I wonder why I am not. 

But when I shaved off my hair, I did find there,  a piece of me that was starting to rot. 

Oh no it’s not fair, it really is not.

But I really hope I can care. Because if I do not, I’m afraid that this rot. 

Will spread beneath the covers.

28 in the grave, not because of death but due to irreversible decay.

Not a woman or part of any type of institution.

Just an irreverent female left to rot.