Her hair is distracting. Her hair is blue, and it’s distracting. I know that blue. It’s that, I don’t care that you’re watching me blue. Why can’t she be normal? Sitting on her knees on the subway. Maybe I could talk to her if she’d just sit like a normal person. Maybe I’d walk up to her and tap her on the shoulder if her hair were yellow, or red, or brown. Why does it have to be blue?
She rides to her stop, gets up, and squeezes in front of me, like I’m not even there, like I’m no one, and I can’t move. I can’t breathe, because if I do, it’ll go right down onto her neck. Why does she do that?
It’s her hair. Her I don’t care that you want me hair. That salty, ocean water blue that she runs her fingers through as though to say, yeah, you could drown in me…if I let you. But I won’t. Every day, I’ve watched her blue hair fall over her white shoulders. I’ve counted the freckles hidden beneath the blue strands when her skin peeks through. I’ve watched her walk away from me, down the aisle, and through the door. I’ve watched her step out, and drift through the crowd. Her blue head bobs away among the normals. The nobodies. Every day since Monday, I’ve watched that un-natural, un-normal, fuck you hair leave me standing alone. And every day since I first saw her, I’ve wished that I were drowning.
But I’m not.
I’m breathing.
And all I can think of is tomorrow.
Amanda Goemmer is a Kentucky native, currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction writing at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is working on her first novel, in addition to a collection of nonfiction works.
