I wanna cut my hair, I told my mother this, my senior year of high school.

I want to take my waist length locks and go chop chop chop.

I want to express myself in a new way, rather than being just the girl with long hair who sits in the back of the classroom or in the front, never in the middle.

she looks at me from across the table and shakes her head.

my beautiful... my adopted.... daughter.

no.

oh.

wait. Wait she tells me as I bite into a sandwich made of ham and mayonnaise.

you will regret it, remember, your older sister cried for hours after she did it when she was eleven.

I want to yell that I am not my older sister, that sometimes I am not even a girl, that sometimes I feel male or just... other.

I do not make my choices lightly. I never have. I use the facts presented me to make my decisions, I never show emotion.

sometimes I break down because of it.

I want to cut my hair.

no.

oh.

I stare at my father, nursing a bleeding hand that I cut on a glass I dropped.

you will look like a man. He tells me that with my face shape, I'm better off looking young and innocent with long blonde hair that reaches far past my waist.

I have seen horrible things.

this child was never innocent.

you cannot be innocent when you grow up being abused and starved, you cannot be innocent when you are bounced from home to home as a child.

you cannot be innocent when a foster brother from a previous home licks your face and neck, scaring you into covering all the way up in blankets when you sleep, because you fear he will come again.

you cannot be innocent when your ex religion tells you that a gay person will burn in hell forever and you realize that they mean you.

you cannot be innocent when you starve yourself, trying so so hard to disappear.

I want to cut my hair.

no.

oh.

the women at the salon ask me if I am sure. They only end up cutting off nothing because I leave when they refuse to give me what I want.

I want to cut my hair.

yes.

....

....

oh.

the man at the barbershop takes my phone and reads the words that I have typed there because I have shut down and can no longer speak.

they cut it all off.

I want to cut my hair.

INKTOBER 2019 Day 2 - Mindless - Beeheeyem