Unnatural Redhead — Audrey Schloss
My red hair is transactional.
I take my tips
Earned from irritated customers
For lukewarm lattes
To portion out my January labor.
Bottom of the bottle at minimum wage.
An hour of my time
Exchanged for a month of self-expression.
My Amber hair is a landlord.
Collecting its dues.
I dye it every month.
With apricot up to my elbows
Tinted against the cusps of my ears.
And after caramel swirls
Into my espresso fate,
After my spirit circles the shower drain,
I clutch the coins
Earned from people who will never understand
How it feels
To drown in ginger.
As the month ends
The stains on my shower tiles fade.
January rusts into February.
And I pay my dues once more.
Audrey Schloss is a senior in high school and an aspiring author hoping to share her love of the romance genre with the world. She has been published in the JUSTPOETRY anthology Mayflowers, has won several smaller writing competitions, and has received two Honorable Mentions by the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition. After her last semester of high school, Schloss will be attending university, double-majoring in Journalism and English.