Nat Raum

mourning or requesting “agnes” at karaoke forever

i.

the clock and the calendar would agree that it’s exactly
five years to the day i bought three boxes of candy red
hair dye at the drugstore and raked it over my greasy scalp
with my college roommate’s comb. i’ve seen five years’ time
since the 45 minutes i sat on the vinyl shower floor
brushing out knots and willing thick curls to rinse clean
before i passed out in the haze of hot water. i traded mats
in a dirtyblonde or mousebrown curtain for crimson instead.

ii.

i haven’t known what day it is all month and i don’t know
what time it is but it’s definitely after midnight and i’ve had
my third or fourth tecate tall boy. they don’t really take requests
here but i know the dj and i’ve decided it’s finally time for me
to cry. i shove my lime wedge in the can’s mouth, rind and
then flesh to follow, swaying onstage to synth piano before i
choke down teardrops with my cerveza through a siren
song of grief. i lose my dropped octave in the last
two verses; i haven’t taught myself to wail in masc yet.
by the end i repeat like a needle stuck in a record’s deep
scratches, you’re gone and i’m lost and i still can’t figure out
for whom i’m caterwauling like a buzzard scavenging
in autumn rain: him or me.

iii.

when i braid my hair, i feel the ends break and
split into sevenths, peeled apart one at a time as i untangle
knots with just my hands. on my drive to the salon the next day,
after i’ve brushed out the mat that lives at the nape of my neck,
i practice telling roxy how much i want her to cut off.
just over a foot. it takes me days to get used to how fast
my fingers free when i run them through and it will take him
weeks if memory still serves. but soon i don’t miss it,
the weight of two feet of coarse irish curls on my back
and shoulders. i don’t miss the splits and breaks and i don’t
blame them for their exhaustion after two years of absorbing
everything i have, nor for our shared relief that parting
brought some sort of exorcism i’ve been chasing ever since.