Outside The Box

The snip of the scissors counteracts the thud of a book falling open on a desk. I try to ignore the second, but my memory is loud and large and real life is oh so small. I could get lost in there.

The last of my hair falls to the ground and I stare at it numbly. Where's the euphoria I should be feeling? Where's the freedom I was promised?

It's not here. It's always where I'm not. The grass is always less yellow and depressing, as they say.

"Phase one is done!" Jet tells me. I turn and look at Jet. I forgot he existed. He's smiling at me, but I can tell from his eyes he gets it, at least a bit. "Whaddaya think?"

I turn to the mirror. A face looks back at me. I bring a hand up to touch its cheek. Soft.

That's you, I remind myself. It looks different from the face I've learned is my own. In a good way. I think. The hair is cut to the scalp, leaving a sea of mousy brown hair surrounding my chair.

I shake myself out of my trance and answer. "I-it's good. I like it." I move my hand from the cheek - my cheek - to rub it over my hair. "I love it."

Jet grins bigger. "Ready for round two?" He holds a bottle of green dye and I nod, relieved. I won't have to think.

Jet and I have never made small talk in our conversations. We met a party while he was smoking weed and I was trying hard to sneak off and within half an hour I was laying with my head in his lap and a joint of my own as I sobbed and confessed my heart out. A week into our friendship he was sleeping in my dorm more often than not, after nights of less studying than mutual therapy.

And now, six months later, we were in his bathroom giving me a makeover sure to stop my parent's heart when they saw.

It's strange, how in a college as religious as this one, the first person I ended up meeting was the only other queer person I'd ever interacted with.

I close my eyes and hum as he gets to work wetting my hair. I drift back into my memory.

My mom pops to mind. She's a tall woman, with hair braided near constantly, minimal, natural-looking makeup. She wears cardigans and flowy shirts and swishy long skirts and capris.

I wanted to be her, as a kid. Four children, a lovely aesthetic, and perfectly righteous. Instead, I'm a sophomore in college without any romantic interests as of now, so no kids, an aspiring apostate who hasn't the faintest clue about their gender.

She'd never approve. This should be satisfying, but it's not.

I open my eyes again, watching the face that is mine as my only real friend massages dye into my hair.

I don't know who I am. All I have is who I'm not, and that's not much to go on.

The only thing to do is to get as far away from that person I was as possible, hence the hair. Along with it, my wardrobe has changed quite a bit. Blouses and skirts shoved to the side of my closet to make room for borrowed button-ups and jeans. Contacts traded in for clunky glasses. I don't feel like Lexi Gunter anymore. I don't know if I ever did.

I wish I was creative in some way. I wish I could write poetry or paint or do something besides cry to let it out. I wish I didn't still pause over my scriptures when I found them.

I don't want to be Lexi Gunter. I'm not Lexi Gunter.

At the same time, I'm hardly whoever I'm trying to be. I still hold those memories inside me. They still shape who I am.

I wish I was one or the other, instead of this in-between I am.