"Hair" - A Poem in Response to Tony Hoagland's "Dickhead"

Yeah, he's cool...

This is a little poem I actually wrote a couple years ago that was originally published in print in the book To Kiss the Other Bird Beyond the Glass, which can be purchased here. When I read Hoagland's "Dickhead" (which can be read here, along with some of his other poems), I was reminded of it again right away. The awkwardness of adolescence is an period of our lives we all try our best to pretend never happened, but it is important to not to forget it because it was a significant time of growth (both physically and mentally) and is what makes us strong, mature adults today.

Hair

I don’t spend much of my time
looking at my armpit.
It’s not a place you would go searching
for a lost sandal
or a poem, for that matter.

There’s not much there
except the occasional smell
of Del Taco on a busy Saturday afternoon.
I was never expecting to find anything there
or for anyone else to either.

When I caught another twelve-year-old girl
staring at me and snickering,
then quickly turning away,
I frantically searched my shirt
for a spaghetti sauce stain that was not there,

only wisps of soft, brown moss
growing in what had always been
a dry, naked desert.
I tried to tug down my sleeves,
but they had become too small.