I’m going bald.
Most people don’t notice, but I can’t look in the mirror without
seeing a
decaying
wasteland on top of my head. It’s not receeding yet, which is good
because I
already have an
ungodly large forehead. But thinning — always thinning.
The fact that people don’t see it makes it worse for me. It makes me
think
I can fool the
world. It gives me false hope. Those whose scalps reflect light at
great
distances have been
forced to come to terms. So I write this to purge the dark secret that
keeps
me away from
public pools and windy meadows.
I always told myself I would go bald. The men on my mother’s side
are
folicly challenged.
If I somehow dodged the bullet, having thought otherwise would be like
a
bonus.
But there is
no prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box that is my life.
I look back on the days when my thick mane reached beyond my
shoulders,
rich and
brilliant like the maple syrup — the real kind from trees. I never
thought
much of the lost
strands collected in circles above my drain after showers. They did not
diminish the whole —
or so I thought. Now I lament for those foolish days of innocence,
forever
lost like my hair.
When I am but a withered shadow of my youthful self, do not look
away in
disgust at my
barren brow. I will not need your pity, as I have enough on my own.