My first attempt to grow a beard
was when I was hospitalized
for cutting my wrist with a knife.
After some days of patchy growth,
I saw myself in the mirror
of the psych ward’s common bathroom
and decided to shave it off.

Closely monitored by a nurse,
I used a razor on my face
to remove the overgrown scruff 
that made my eyes look like windows 
in a droopy, neglected house 
whose lawn was in dire need of care –
the kind of job I often did

in summers as a teenager,
before I really knew what harm
depression can wreak on the mind.
Back in those days, mowing the grass –
money earned saved up for college
or a trip to Costa Rica –
I was a mostly hopeful youth

having not yet experienced
the sensation of my future
being ripped out from under me:
a sinkhole beneath the front steps
of that house, unrepairable, 
spreading toward the foundation. 
The best recourse is moving out,

trying to settle somewhere else.
I was discharged a week later –
my face now smooth, my eyes clearer –
spent another year in the home
where I became miserable,
then packed my clothes in a suitcase
and flew across the whole country.