hair tie

my hair is finally long enough to pull back again.
sometimes i feel like i'm getting younger.
not physically. definitely not physically. 
just in the sense that my hungers are returning.
when i was small i begged my mom to braid
my hair. she did once. we were all busy. 
the car was crashing & the windows were full
of wasps & the house was falling & rising like waves.
i don't remember what it felt like but if i reach
my hands behind my head i can pretend. 
in high school sometimes girls would play 
with each other's hair in chorus. a french bread.
a crown braid. a fish tail braid. mine was 
short & bleached & angry. frayed ends like 
bad paintbrush tips. the last hair cut i got 
in a shop was early covid. a dead mall off 
the mountain highway. a man with shaky hands 
buzzed the sizes & used his little brush 
to sweep my neck. i stared at the blue barbicide 
soaking his tools. he wore his mask over his mouth
but below his nose. i took to cutting my own hair
in the bathroom mirrors & then one day 
i just couldn't do it anymore. my whole body
was screaming. i was ancient or i was new.
i shaved my head down to the scalp. i filmed it
but i don't have the video anymore. piles of hair.
even with an undercut i had so much more
than i thought i did. after i still
i had all these hair ties & nothing to do with them. 
stretching them. putting them on my wrist. 
i didn't grieve the hair. i felt more adult than
i had ever before. apartment. car payment. 
shaved down to the root. the snowplow
pushing all our breath to the river. my partner jokes
that i should put my hair in pigtails. 
i do once in the bathroom mirror & i want
to weep. i feel like i'm maybe ten. ten was 
the last time i think things were maybe not so bad.
not so loud & hurried. come on come & grow
something you will lose. i brush my hair slow.
the front pieces run astray but i can pull it back.
i am going to ask someone to braid it
& we will sit & gossip as if the world is not
thicker than ever before. as if we are maybe 
in chorus & singing a song we will soon forget.