Trim

A poem about desperately trying to be someone else

The hedge I grew—
the one I watered, loved, and shaped—
I did not plant.

It looks like me:
the leaves,
they rustle and sway
in the wind the way my hair repeats;
the shape and what it used to be
was a mold of me.

The hedge has consumed me.
It is my job, my home, my eyes, my life.
It appeared on its own,
it grew on its own,
wild and out of control.
I thought it was sensational.
I was in love.

“a green abomination,”
(an alien)
“it needs to cease…”

and so I loved it, watered it,
I read all the books on hedges:
“it needs to stop”
so I stopped it.

It started with a trim;
big scissors, the whole ordeal,
I made it nice, did it twice, tried having fun,
but it became a process:


1. Trim
2. Trash the leaves that fell to the grass
3. Cry myself to sleep
4. Wake up to the hedge grown again
5. Do it again


I did not plant the hedge that holds my life.
They hoped, they prayed,
they whispered in the other room “please, please change.”
I tried, I tried, I trimmed, I cried,

blood, sweat, and tears, and blood, and—somewhere—love
wasn't enough

so I trimmed the whole damn plant.

“Where did you go, my little weirdo?”

Why was it ever here?