kitchen counter barbershop

EJ Hicks

it takes her an hour & a half to do it the first time
(forty five minutes longer than it should)
because she wants it to be perfect:
every hair in its place
exactly the right length.
this is a love story—a classic.
one that headlines every newspaper
& lines the shelves at any bookshop
worth its salt. this is a song
played over speakers in every gay
bar in america, notes spilling out onto
streets awash in color. this is a femme
touching up her butch’s buzzcut.
her hand on my jaw, warm,
confident despite her nerves,
turns my head this way & that as the clippers
drag over the nape of my neck.
hair falls to the floor in tufts,
suddenly dry & coarse now that it’s
no longer mine.
every fifteen minutes she pauses her music
& consults a youtube video
of a hairdresser demonstrating on her husband
how to taper the hard line of hair
at the back of the head, how to trim
sideburns & clean up a neckline.

she works with a focus usually reserved
for quantum physicists &
heart surgeons, with
a gentleness i have only ever witnessed
by her hand.
give me a kiss, i say, can i have a kiss?
she scolds me for distracting her,
removes my hand from around her hip,
brushes the hair off her leggings,
& even though the answer is a resounding no
i have never felt more loved than
i do right now in this kitchen, with my head
& heart in her hands.
i used to dream of knights
rescuing princesses from castles
of lone cowboys riding off into the sunset
of darkness & monsters & blood
but now i dream of this:
of the kitchen counter barbershop
& the look of concentration on my love’s face as she holds
a pair of shears in her hand &
makes me human again.

EJ Hicks is currently a graduate student in the English Department at EIU. They spend their time creating things, whether its out of words or yarn. They write mostly about queerness, monsters, and how it feels to be a little bit of both.