Bad Hair Days

Getting older,
afraid to cut my long hair off
There’s just so much less time
to grow it back now
than back when I
was young

17
shaved my whole head clean
on a whim
some people thought
I had cancer
(it was the 80s, and
unheard of back then)

folks like to say that
as we age
we become more patient,
and I tell myself,
after all,
it’s only hair, but

the next three years
if the truth be told,
seem very long
as I’d be growing it out again
& measured as they’d be
in dissatisfaction
over something as unimportant
and effemeral,
as bad hair days