i don’t remember the night i cut my hair down to the skull and dyed it koolaid red / only that my mom, head bald from the chemo, said nothing but nearly cried / the girls at school said what happened / i liked it better before / the boy who gave me a glass swan at his birthday / messaged me on AIM every night / was for once silent and sullen / and all i wanted was to look like abby the busty livejournal blogger / a different neon hairdo every week / pallid and skateboard pretty as a real life tank grrl / but i am still bird limbs and slab chest / and no one will look at me now / the red-faced man in peets confirms this when he calls me my father’s son / my father insists the man was drunk / but i never knew an old white man who didn’t look through me anyways / i don’t remember what drew me to the blade / but when my hair was a river, every day of 5th grade the white girl grabbed my arm / stole my scrunchies / twisted my wrist as i dug my nails into her crushing fist / when my hair was a dark horizon, i looked too much like the two other asian girls in my class / or my mother’s portrait / or the endless comparisons to zhang ziyi flying across a silverscreen sky / i cut my hair with the same blades that some nights opened my flesh / so perhaps hair was a healthier sacrifice than blood / i don’t remember the night i made myself a new reflection / but i imagine the scissors singing / watch how i destroy myself / transform into something you cannot grasp