“We regret to inform you”

Last week, I applied for an MFA in Writing.

Today, I am going to dye my hair peroxide blonde.

Because I am all talk, apparently, with very little substance.

Five words isn't very many. You have an incurable disease. You are going to hell. You are a bad person. It's only a flesh wound.

Nothing I haven't heard before.

So why do these five words hurt?

Let me explain it as a Facebook post:

[I read a post on Facebook yesterday that lobsters can't scream when they're being boiled alive. Their exoskeleton releases a high pitched noise when it boils, and that is their scream - the only way they can release the pain.]

I put that in "[]" because it is contained.

When my hair strands meet the peroxide, they can't scream, either.

It will be contained, and I will be contained, in this little post where I share that my dreams were put in a pot, boiled, and were determined to be nothing but hot air.

It will be contained, in a hair salon, where I will ask the hairdresser to make me blonde.

In five words, she will say: I will not do that.

In five words, she will say: You will regret doing this.

In five words, the lobsters boiled to death.

In five words, I couldn't scream out loud.

All it takes is five words.