Little boy

I liked it in the summer time when you didn’t cut your hair

until a smiling girl said you looked a lot like her

(she meant it as a compliment, she loves her hair)

even then … as young as you are

it was an insult and you hacked off your locks

with giant metaphoric scissors, cutting out injury

(is it truly the worst thing in the world to be mistaken for a girl?)

is it the perceived notion of weakness? An insult of gender roles?

and what of the dream, to roam free of such things?

in a place where beautiful boys can grow curls

and girls with treehouses, don’t get rope burn on the way down