Andreas Fleps

LET DOWN YOUR HAIR

I’ve grown my hair out for over a year now—
the longest since middle school—when I didn’t

know how to tend to it—so it was a tangled mess,
just as my whole body is now. I came out of my

mother’s womb with my hand on my head.
Maybe my brain was already too heavy.

Maybe my body language already expressed, “Holy shit!”
I used to pet myself as I sipped from a sippy cup,

my version of a pat on the back—there, there,
everything will be alright. I still have the habit

of running my fingers through my hair, but it’s
to remind me there’s something silky right above

all these loutish and pugnacious thoughts, and the long
curls sing of possible languid curves in the road ahead.

Miles upon miles have grown out of me, and miles are
still left inside of me. Cutting is a part of the story.

Regrowing is a part of the story, too. When I scratch
my head in confusion, I remember to twirl a curl until

it’s a tornado to prove a finger can untwine a catastrophe.
Sometimes I do not put any product in my hair and it

frizzes electric, so I can look in the mirror and know I’ve
endured being struck by Zeus. Sometimes I let it be a

messy mop because I am a tool with the capacity to clean
another’s life—hold their dirt closely to my heart for a while.

This time, it will be the boy who grows his hair out, and lets
it out the window, to climb back into himself after he decided

to jump.