I used to want to grow a beard.
My facial hair never connected.
It was basically a mustache with
sideburns and a few hairs on my
lip.
I would go months without shaving.
Trying to achieve anything close
to a full beard.
The beard was absent not because
of lack of effort, but simply due
to the fact that I was seventeen.
I looked terrible, almost Amish,
but I never gave a fuck.
Now, I have a beard.
Twenty-five and I am basically
connected.
My beard is thicker than the
hair on my head now.
People have complimented me
on my beard.
I can't fucking stand it.
I have the same problem with
my tattoos.
When I was seventeen I got
my first tattoo.
A haphazardly applied,
“meaningful” tattoo.
I thought I was fucking awesome
but all my friends were happy
to remind me that it was
a horrible tattoo.
That tattoo cost me twenty dollars
in the bedroom of some
shit-head’s moms’ house I had
never met before then.
Today, at twenty-five,
I have a full neo-trad punk sleeve
and people have begun to notice.
Similarly to the beard,
at twenty-five, I barely had to try
to fill up this sleeve.
I gave the artist a thousand bucks
for ten straight hours of work
and told her to go to town.
Now, I get complimented on my
sleeve everywhere I go.
And now, I fucking hate it.
What exactly happened though?
What is currently happening?
How could I love it when
I look like shit, and more
importantly, hate it when people
like my appearance?
Because of this notion,
I try hard to fuck myself over
but it never works.
Sometimes I will take the razor
to my scalp and go full skin-head.
It is my all-time favorite look,
but I forget that I have more
tattoos on the back of my head,
and somehow people like those
more than my arms.
Sometimes I will wear the same
clothes every day for a month.
From the moment I wake up, to
the moment I crawl into bed,
the same khaki pants, my Red Wings,
and a black t-shirt.
My hope is that by the end of
the month I will be so repulsive
that people will cross the street
when they see me coming.
What ends up happening, is my
worn clothes become baggy,
and dirty, and get holes,
and I turn into some kind of
alternative skate-rat.
Out of nowhere, people start
complimenting my boots as if
I bought them worn.
I have no clue what the fuck
is going on, because I can
and always do wear those same
boots with other clothes,
but when I do, it's back to
my beard and my tattoos.
So I have switched to Crocs.
From my understanding, and
from what I have been told
by many women is that Crocs
are undoubtedly the most
disgusting footwear purchasable.
And in this decision, I have found
a home.
So far, the only other people I
see wearing Crocs, are for some
reason always wearing pajama bottoms,
an ugly sweatshirt, and the nappiest
hair in town.
It's similar to people who own Jeeps.
From my understanding, if you own
a Jeep, you are officially a piece
of shit to everyone on Earth, except
other Jeep owners, with whom they
will smile and wave and share a moment
of Jeep familial bonding.
The only people who would dare compliment
on my Crocs, are thus, other people
wearing Crocs, and we share a
quick moment of enjoyment.
On the other hand, most frequently,
people will look at my Crocs and
basically tell me that I look
like dog shit,
which is exactly what I have
always wanted.
