tumbling words

Your hair was long when we first met

Samson’s strength was in his hair. And mine. But I am no Delilah. I am not Samson either.

Oh, I cut his hair myself one night

She was like Samson without Delilah. His strength like her’s within their hair. She’d cut it off herself instead of having it cut off by someone’s beloved hand. Her hand not hers, her action not hers either.

He liked her hair long and flowing, and when they ended she wanted to be rid of everything he had touched Cut him off where she began

Naked at last, weak and alone devoid of all her strength but oh so free.

Every time someone would tear at her heart rip off, piece by piece; she’d claw at herself for her own sake, with all she had.

And one last time she held her hair no longer strength, but weakness all that was not right incarnate.

She gathered it in her nape with one hand, and with the other she cut and cut and cut - cut herself free.

I loved you first. I loved you first.

As a kid, I had long hair. The untamable, unruly kind of hair. I was never particularly girly, didn’t like dresses, dreaded bras and detested the color pink. I ran with the boys and my long hair only got in the way sometimes.

When I turned 14, in a fit of rebellion, I decided to cut my hair - knowing that my mother would not approve. And, as expected, approve she did not. “Now I have two sons.”, she sighed with disappointment. I grew my hair out soon after that.

My long hair turned him on. When my then-boyfriend broke up with me, I cut it off. All of it. The hairdresser was full of hesitation. All I recall is feeling light, literally and figuratively.

You look kick-ass. / That’s so brave. / Love that you did that, girl. / In love. / Sexy. / DUDE. / Omg, you rock girl!!! / Wow. / Such a cool look. / Is that you? Awesome. / Oh my God.

These were some of the reactions to my newly short hair. All of them from women, and all of them supportive. Without questions asked, they complimented me and supported it. None of my male friends have said a word. Except for one, well-meaning guy who wanted to know whether there was a reason for this drastic change.

There is a reason and that reason is fear.

I am 24. I am a student, have a job, my own place and do my thing. And I am a feminist. So then, when I thought about cutting my hair and found my first reaction to be fear, I was surprised. Surprised and ashamed. Why would I be afraid to cut my hair, what was happening to me? Was I not as much of a free-thinking, progressive intellectual as I had thought? I am 24, and I am filled with crippling fear and self-doubt. More than some of that self-consciousness is centered around my looks -  around how people will perceive me, what they’ll think of me and I wonder whether they’ll think of me as attractive, pretty or even beautiful. A good deal of that beauty, for me at least, has always been associated with my hair. Growing up, I was never the pretty or the cute one. Now, having reached adulthood, I know what I am not and beautiful is not an adjective people nor I myself have associated with my person. But even with all else failing, I could always rely on my hair to make up for what was missing. To brighten the picture, pretty me up and compensate for everything else I was lacking. My hair made me attractive, or as attractive as I could be. My hair signified to everyone else that there was something feminine about me. Something worthy to be looked at. You might have noticed that in all of this, I have become a thing. No longer a person, a human being with value and intellectual properties that could draw other people in, but a something.

I had a full head of hair, long falling down to my back, glossy brown hair and a cheeky fringe. Sometimes my hair would be in a bun, sometimes tousled and ungovernable - my hair was a thing of beauty. My hair. Not me. I am not my hair. Just as I am not my breasts, my vagina or my slightly overweight body. Sure, all of that is part of me, but it is not all of me. It does not constitute me, in my being - as what or who I am.

But it does. Because that part of me - my exterior has been subjected to what others have wanted it to be. Like the notion of what a girl looks like, should not look like, should not behave as, should not appeal to. When has my body every been celebrated for all it is, can be, will be and do? When has it not been subjected to society’s notions, restrictions and gaze? When was my body my own? When have my insecurities been my own? When have I been myself?

When I noticed how much my own mind was entrenched in these notions that were not my own, I decided to face it head on. When in doubt or when afraid, I need to go for that doubt, that fear.

Now, when I look in the mirror, I feel light. Naked, stripped down to the basics. The essentials. Now, when I see myself, I still see the things that are not right, ugly and features that draw my self-consciousness to the surface, but now there is nothing disguising those parts. Now I get to ask “Why am I not right?”, “Who says I am not right?”, “Who decides on what it means to be beautiful?”, “What is the worth in being ‘beautiful’?”, “What is wrong with this picture?”

still beating heart

swallowed up in brewed cooked up storms creating the mist of wondrous tales

filled with mystery, despair and tragedy

when eyelids close stormclouds grazing the sea weathered cliffs fog taking breaths swallowing souls silently bound forever

everlasting devotion and longing love

I swear, my still beating heart to eternally be in your shores at the will of the tides determined by the wind worn by the seasons

Lána an Draoi

His song was not of the native tongue yet the words which poured from his mouth washed over her only to be met in fiery but sweet many a kiss

When shall we two meet again not so soon Canberra, Vienna, Galway it’s a shame most likely never

like a lovesick troubadour without a voice hoarse from choking silently he sat right underneath one of Nora’s windowpanes staring frantically up to her bed to be met with her gaze she who would not rest in slumber as he was waiting in the drizzling cold

lána an draoi

your greeting my farewell still on our lips

my body is aching. my joints hurting my bones cracking my muscles disappearing my mind is spinning

can‘t stop this carousel gagging to vomit clear it all out release the pressure a nagging voice laced with menace

whisper seductively to follow my father’s frame drown in the whispering pulls of disturbia live in your own dystopia

maybe the aching comes first the desperate avoiding all the escaping  is only prolonging the fight against an undeniable predisposition the first step and the wrong direction

is my body forseeing my mind’s disease slowing down in order to cope with the tension

I hate these clinging clingy thoughts

nothing else matters just the neuroses circling

The air is burning

the whole city is on fire every grasp for oxygen feels like sand scraping in your lungs oh Imogen

leaving your mouth desperate for water dispositions heating up heißlaufende Gemüter piling up, pent up emotions looking for a way out

just like any fluid evaporated with same intensity tempers are about to flare up, be consumated like a bonfire - crackling first, slowly speeding up process built up heat - consuming the air, streets, buildings, people

a new sub-hell has descended on us oh sweet hellish paradise draining, leaving behind a hot mess of insaneness dry flesh, bones, gooey-smelly-damp-drying remains

ready to jump bones mass orgy city style - no inhibitions nothing left to lose ooze - reek of sweaty desire eating you alive drown in me, let yourself get lost in my steps, get caught until you want to escape and only then will I push you further into oblivion

That tale of love’s death and peril in Hades' realms you soon forgot

like your desire for my soul or was it my body? drowned in one of the dark land’s rivers

the four of them were struck with grief - halted in their ever so continuous flow- as Eurydice’s overshadowed figure turned                                                              into fog over their waters

All the Orpheus in me was left to do add water to the depths of Charon’s playground on cue

He carried away the corpse that once supposedly was our love

kind enough to spare us the fare for even he used to separating lovers felt sympathy.