I’m Getting Older

My chin looks like it’s been dipped in powder. I wipe the back of my hand across my chin and cheeks just to make sure. No powder falls onto the sink. Yeah. Those white hairs are really sprouting out of my face.

Then I run my palm along the top of my head and sigh, for the male pattern baldness is expanding. I’d never minded being bald in the past — I started shaving my head at age fifteen — because after I ran the blade across my scalp my hairline was always intact. Today, my hairline is interrupted by shiny brown skin at the top, while the rest of my head is framed by a fading black shadow. The contrast between sections of my head has become more pronounced in photos. I know that other people see it too.

My vision begins to blur as I take a few steps back. I place my hands on my stomach and squeeze until both of my hands are full of myself. I glance down at my fingers and groan as sections of my stomach squelch through the spaces in between them. I whisper: “Oh my god. When the fuck did this all happen?”

I edge forward until my nose is hovering inches from the mirror. “Look at your cheeks old man,” I say. “They are so full.” As I retreat from the mirror, I am filled with a new purpose: “I’m going to jog three times around that park, or until I am completely out of breath and wheezing.”