He must have gone mad, tearing or clipping as he walked.
He must have used scissors; each little bundle of silvery black hair is about three inches
long, cut neatly.
Every lock a testimony to his existence, a protest against nothingness, a prayer to
loneliness.
He said, I will leave little notes up and down the street to whisper at the toes of walkers,
to keep them guessing how long this manifestation lasted.
Sprawling both sides of the block, they will tell my story, because I cannot write it down.
This might have been a liberation; he was welcoming spring, running, screaming,
breaking some inane traditions.
Or, perhaps she said, these are my last pretty days, and I don’t care, I will show beauty how little I care by letting it blow away in the spring wind like
nothing at all.
These pieces belonging to someone, someone who wanted to grow lighter, head bare to
earth, humble sheen of the scalp, greeting the sky, honest for once.
Who is this, leaving love letters or suicide notes. They left a frantic feeling; this was
an event, this was something that happened on an otherwise ordinary day.
It happened, the sharpening, the discarding of a part of one’s self, it happened like an
unplanned modern art exhibit, where the crowd breathlessly asks, what does it mean?
Like a foreign language spray painted on a wall, some mislead soul scraping from
within to send an encrypted message.
This is the body, so small, so fragile, scattered over the pavement, and it lasts only until it
is swept up by other hands.

*This is an old poem from one of my college classes. I was talking about it recently and decided to revisit it.