locks

i keep getting out the shears. i told you i don't like when men pull women's hair. that i never wanted them pulling mine. so i usually had fauxhawks in NYC.

but going shorn was new. i did it in 2016 when jeff strangled me for the first time. in october.

he came home and sobbed.

cried for days.

but he'd strangled me when i said i had to go to the cops and report him because by then

he'd stolen at least

$40,000 just in cash.

i pretended then

half-believed

whichever is really true

because

the thing about narcissists is that they look like the rest of us most of the time 

that that meant he loved me.

but what he must have loved

was pulling my hair.

you'd never believe the roars that rise and burst

out of me

when my hair is pulled. the fights i start--

--but what locks never break

are the locks i wrap you up in.

i hope they never break

or i'll have to slump to the cobblestones of Hell