Congruency in Opposition

What would become of Jenny’s hair? Or would it become, at all, or be torn to shreds like an old blotter full of snags and misadventures?

Would she abolish it like a careworn dream, a disgust of cruel disappointments?

What fresh chaos might she inflict upon her head?

(Such were my fevered thoughts as I walked to school that morning, the leaves crunchy underfoot, my brown leather satchel dragging carelessly behind me on its strap, cutting a channel through the leaves like incessant thoughts of Jenny’s hair cut a familiar path through my synapses…)

Oh, why did it captivate me so? I did not know; only that it pulled at me and twisted in my hands like a pony in heat or a workdog at the beach. Desperate for recognition, full of determination.

“Jenny, oh Jenny, how I have loved you! From the first that I saw you, nay, from the first that I ever conceived of such a possibility as thee, you have filled my dreams and my heart with a longing that superseded mere imagination by soaring into the vaulted heavens as if free from me and thee, independently!” my heart opined…

She inspired such adolescent poetry in me.

Her hair… she had this habit, you see, of enacting great works upon it; perming, dyeing, scissoring at home, and extorting anguished forms of conceptual art out of its fatigued, but resigned, languid fabric at Experimental Hair on Regent Street.

It was tortured weekly.

And occasionally assassinated altogether.

It did not detract from my love for her, but it did incite an edge of angst and uncertainty in my already-frazzled neurons. It was not easy being autistic and in love.

Being Monday, a new drama would be due to take stage on her head and my mouth salivated at the prospect.

I’m sitting down near my dresser and discussing with my reflection what my next move should be.

Every morning I can’t help but subconsciously mimic a new, protruding emotion in my hairstyle.

This urge was really only present in my high school years, and hasn’t held up very strongly until I began encountering a boy with brown hair and cubic glasses: John. He seemed to have a way of igniting this old habit inside me, and I didn’t know why.

However, if I opened my cold exterior and revealed these warm, raw emotions to the world, the band of egocentric harpies I affiliate with would rip me apart and devour me whole without remorse.

But it doesn’t really matter anyway. They’ve slowly sucked and drained the outer layers through my flesh and dissolved the rest with their residual venom and spite. I’m left a cold, hard shell of myself; addicted to their acidic personalities purely through a fear the substance would run out and I’d be left hollow and alone.

For this reason I personally chose not to get acquainted with John for his safety. But I couldn’t forget him in his actions and movements; his bright character colouring the diluted, monotonous memories I have about University.

Whenever our eyes meet, a strange spark seems to fly out of John he can’t seem to control. He tries to hold it in, but that internal energy seems to still get out in the strangest habits he has; from rapping his foot like a rabbit when I walk past him or subconsciously swaying his arms from side to side when I ask him something arbitrary.

I don’t mind it, though. I find it refreshing to see an exotic bird flying around eccentrically in a grey city of grounded pigeons. And I feel he’s like a quiet window I could open and confidently share all my secrets with. Our conversations were brief at first, but they’ve grown in length over the past year, and I’ve started opening up about myself to him more than any of my other friends.

Sometimes I wonder if he’s a mirrored version of myself: the other side of my reflection that forms the whole when subliminally transfused through the mirror. Because his hobbies and my interests seem to link together like a chain. I once mentioned I loved reading poetry, and he wrote and read aloud an entire verse on the spot – just for me!

“When the shores reside their guard and allow the oceans to wash away all Earthly land

Like a ray of Sun, you’ll float above the dissolution and be carried into the sky by hand.

The trees and the flowers and the creatures in between

Will all wash up in the imitated ocean with you in the dissolved lands, unseen.”

In a moment of rushed ecstasy, I kissed him wholly. But I couldn’t find the words to express why and sent the wrong message by abruptly leaving him without a goodbye.

That was yesterday.

I tie my hair into two braids: a perfect symbol of my conflicted emotions I feel for not only John; but for my boyfriend, Peter.