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i will not sacrifice to the Lord my God
burnt offerings that cost me nothing.
[king david]
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-I woke up early one morning, and the gators were out again. I'd had a strange dream, a light dream, and I was just tired of returning to the weight of everything, to the feeling that worth was a bird in flight I couldn't catch. The desire to travel lightly was so strong I hoisted myself up on one elbow and let the strands spool in my palm, felt their weight, and thought, I can't do it. This is my one claim.
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There were a lot of dark voices that day, unexpected violence. This is the only beautiful thing that's yours, it warned. You will not give this up. You will never follow through. Be the way you have always been. I would see girls passing by me and it murmured, And how will you compete with them? But I'm not going to compete with anyone anymore.
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This is why I sat down on a friend's porch last night and raised a smoothie to the sunset, and handed a pair of scissors to my roommate. She said, You are beautiful with long hair, you will be beautiful with none, and when I heard my braid hit the floor with a thump, I knew she was right.
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I knew she was right because I could feel the wind just up above my neck for the first time in memory, and I ran a hand over the shorn strands and introduced them to the sift light and the breeze. I knew she was right because there is no better place for your first real haircut than at a party at night, your friends shrieking and cheering as you hold the thick golden braid aloft and whoop over the porch railing, into the acre of peach trees and the sinking sun.
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This is what I have to give today, almost nothing, a coiled braid over a foot long in an envelope, about to be sent off and turned into comfort for someone else. But when they handed it back to me that night I felt in my palms what I'd turned it into, my fear, and weirdly my greed. Above all, my lack.
But on my head this morning, those things are gone. I lick the stamp, and I just feel the sun warming my crown, the wind against my neck, and light, light everywhere.
