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JR Rhine Jun 2016
"That's it! I'll take it to the scissors myself!"
Mangled, wrangled, tangled mess,
meandering tendrils coil and cross, clump.

Split ends,
knots so impossibly tied the eagle scout is left bewildered,
sun damage: fried, frizzled, frazzled, frayed.

Broken teeth in a gasping comb,
choking brushes enveloped in the furling mess,
hairspray, fruitless, face it:
(Another) Bad Hair Day.

"That's it! Today's the day!"
The call is made, the appointment scheduled,
you sit and wait.

X's mark the calendar, the day is nigh,
your do's judgement day is at hand.
It's time to settle this.

The day before, you wake up,
absentmindedly getting dressed, drudging through routine,
mirror's the last thing you see.

Crusty eyes suddenly open wide,
as split ends seal and knots unfurl,
sun damage heals and combs sing ceaselessly.

The day is met with a new life,
and the dark days of yore seem like a past life,
as this sunny day seems like all there is.

You laugh at what now appears to be such trivialities,
"Twas a bad hair day! And merely so!"
You allow yourself such a shallow deception.

Your hand grabs the phone, your fingers make the call,
your voice makes the cancellation--
"How could I have been so foolish to resort to such measures?!"

You hang up and scoff at yourself,
a hearty laugh in jest at such hastiness,
tossing and swishing your luscious mane to and fro.

You allow it to slip through your fingers,
on the cusp of the cure,
as the bad hair days truly outnumber the good (you know it to be so).

For the next day will come--
You'll greet the mirror with that heart-wrenching sigh,
in visible anguish at the chaotic mess that encroaches upon your head.

          Don't let a good hair day fool you;
                                                        make the call.
Depression is like having a good hair day amongst many bad ones. We need to face that it's time for a haircut.
JR Rhine May 2016
I've got the world's best kept secret
locked in 2 AM screenshots--
her late night musings over a crusty joint, a crushed pill,
or some ***** cigarettes.

She sends me her thoughts,
fears,
anxieties,
insecurities--

at her most vulnerable,
absolutely the most beautiful.

Her anguish stressed in the digital scroll
(though she doesn't like Kerouac, I let her borrow my copy),
her stained fingers mashing all their hurt and nicotine
into the keyboard--

and her pen aches and her paper stains
with the unrequited love she empathizes with
in the somber pop punk songs that explode from the stereo
she sings loudly on cold and lonely night drives
(I shiver in her passenger seat).

And she made for me the greatest of mixtapes,
her holy scrawl expounding upon a dull grey donut-shaped
slowly fading form of intimacy,
a blank CD--

"This mix is a good time"

and when I jammed it into my car stereo I was illuminated.

She is so cool, she is so punk,
and in her clandestine drugstore car charger thefts,
broken poems,
impalpable aesthetic,
impeccable music taste,
illuminated or even further obfuscated drug trips--

I have the world's best kept secret,
and more than anything, I wish to share it with you--

                                     so she can make someone another mixtape.
For Carly, and the rest of the "Throwaways."
If you know Carly, or ever meet her, please ask her to make you a mixtape and make her day/your life.
JR Rhine May 2016
It's seemingly not enough
to curtly say what I've done
and truth be truly told,
there honestly hasn't been much

so thank you kindly
for craftily making it seem
like apparently there's so much more
than what's inherently me.
JR Rhine May 2016
I should have skeletons in my closet,
but they've yet been stripped of their flesh,
and I've let them loose in this small town
for a game of hide 'n' seek.

She returned a set of my pajamas, unwashed,
her intoxicating scent lingering on hooks in my closet
where her aroma constructs an illusion.

I bury my face in them,
feeling my damp cheeks pressed into her *******,
reaching down below where my hand grasps her posterior
where it takes a firm shape in the loose garments.

I dig into the scent until I go crazy;
I tell myself I'll wash them next week.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but she's taken it on the road,
in a small town parading it down empty streets
where I can see it clearly,

her oblong sunglasses darkly obfuscating
what I perceive to be her pejorative gaze,
over a narrow ivory face,
sandy blonde hair flowing in the wind.

(I still feel, yes, that smooth pale face cupped within my trembling hands, that sandy hair tangled around my fingers reaching up the back of her neck, pressing her face more towards mine)

I look for the shallow dent
in her ubiquitous red minute two-door seater
on the passenger side, where she was gently T-*****
by a student driver practicing their three-point turn,
and the smiley-face lemon-scented air freshener
dangling from her rear-view mirror,
having lost its freshness years ago.

(I still see, yes, us in that hardware store parking lot,
in the closed evening hour,
sitting cramped in the passenger seat,
her knees on either side of me,
our shirts off and skin warm and sweaty, nervous,
trembling, trembling, lips aching and souls yearning--
where were we headed to again?)

I look for it so intensely,
I forgot my goal was to never see it again.

          Young love looking for little things in a small town.

For years I play this game of hide 'n' seek,
and part of me should realize
that at some point she got up from her hiding spot
and moved on with her life.

(and no, I won't look at her engagement photos,
nor the photos of her newborn child,
nor the Happy Anniversaries and the congratulatory sentiments--
I can see them without social media's derision)

I still scan the streets
like a vulture over roadkill,
yet I thought I was the one
engraved into the grainy streets
where she commutes over my remains.

I should have skeletons in my closet,
but I let them walk out of my life
so I can chase them all over town.
To the trembling bodies and aching kisses we chase over these small town lights in the midnight hour.
JR Rhine May 2016
My grooved waxy skin
wraps around the swivel chair
eyeing the needle
JR Rhine May 2016
History Repeats.
Regardless how many times
You may press delete.
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