Unforgiven, Unshaven

Posted on January 13, 2005 in Dreams My Beard

My therapist told me not to pick at myself, so because I don’t know what else to do with the energy, let me single out this boor I know, a cro-magnon who woke up in the middle of a dream I was having the other day to find himself shaved. “I did it because it makes you look prettier,” said my mother. This fellow felt the unfamiliar rough-smoothness. He had a warped frown, lips which were swollen from the razor. He looked at himself for a long time, angry at the ugliness I’ve been hiding behind my beard, a sexist lout who beats people with words sometimes and thinks himself the humanitarian with the cancer-decreasing touch. He is a monster, a goon, a blunderer. I wanted to shove him into a brown pond and let dragonfly larvae use his nostrils as ambuscades. Last night he shouted a stupid joke through my mouth. I was so ashamed of him that I made him go back behind the beard.