I shave the side of my head like a person prepping for surgery.
Work says nothing because they cannot regulate hair length 
I cannot put a finger on what is different inside of me but something is buzzing, very low, a tinny whine I cannot place or diagnose, a faintness in my lungs

When I dress in the morning, I rattle a little like a snare drum left snapped in place, too close to a speaker hisssssses
My mother asks me what is wrong with you?
I can honestly answer that I don't know.

I dream about coming out, again, to my mother
I imagine the set of her mouth like the a warped paperback book. I’ve read this book before, when I told her about the first woman I fell in love with. When I told her that my partner used they/them pronouns and she used whatever she wanted.

Coming out and telling someone you were assigned someone you cannot be, I don’t want to read that chapter.
She will see this as losing her daughter.
And I wish she would surprise me.

I expose the shaved side of my head to the sky, begging anyone to dissect me 
and whisper into my bloodied ear all the answers that lie inside of me.
I don't want to tell my mother the results.