Resistance

As he combed his mother’s hair, he thought about how difficult it was to get the knots out, how contrary they were not only to the process but to one’s very sense of order, tightening his grip as he forced the comb through those fetid little clumps, those twisted gnarls of hair that you can’t smooth out, can’t negotiate with, only rip out with a loud yowl, he thought, as she yowled loudly and he ripped, thinking what a chore it was to undo them and how his ears ached with all the screaming and his face and neck still burned from where she’d scratched at him and what a strain on his wrists and shoulders and how he longed to just be done with it and wash the blood out from under his fingernails but first he had to finish the task at hand isn’t that right isn’t that right isn’t that right.

Gahl Liberzon is a research assistant and occasional editor / educator / secondhand bookseller in Long Beach, California. His fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Ghost City Review and Public School Poetry, amongst other places. He has previously taught and performed throughout southeast Michigan, the greater Chicago area, and the greater Tokyo Metropolitan area. You can find his work at https://linktr.ee/gahllib.

A Song for Gahl