sometimes I feel like my long hair
what hides and reveals 
what some version
small and soft 
lives tangled in the unkempt locks
where it takes work to get to my mother's eyes
her cheekbones
a hair's breadth between. 
it's the distance between being looked at 
and being seen. 

shorn, I feel the shame of nakedness 
rather than it's splendor 

I feel the parts of me worth hiding 
in the scorch of gaze 
the raking wind of speech
and I stumble over my clumsy body 
rather than grip the welcome vines
of escape