Man who mourns his hair,
you are allowed to care
and grieve.
Vulnerable to,
this new you
you didn't want
or need.
Thick and full,
youth framed your face,
abundant and
with shine...
are you feeling cheated out of
the ease of those old times?
Is it hard to say,
I miss it -
I miss me -
who raked his hands
through a mane
I now no longer see.
Who has time for men
who mourn
the hair that thins and falls?
Who has time for men
to voice
this certain hurt at all?
A face exposed
and altered by
the cruelty of luck's draw,
can you trust
you are enough
without it anymore?
Are your features charming,
does your smile still seem the same?
When introduced,
do people play a new age guessing game?
Do you people think you're funny now,
where you once possessed an edge?
Do people think at all
as much as you about your head?
A time had been
your thoughts had never leaned, as they do now,
to what it means
to age, change,
to be seen anew and how...
Does it seem a cruelty when any mirror you might pass,
churns up a thousand questions
that, with hair,
you never asked?
Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown