A stranger sitting next to me on the plane
offers me a strand of my own hair.
“Is this your natural color?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “I dye it”
I can see she’s slightly disappointed.
This interaction feels like so many others.
I wish I had lied
I was already pretending, after all.
Olivia Johnson is an archaeologist living in Austin, Texas, who writes poetry in farm fields when she should be looking for artifacts. She spends her free time reading, writing, playing music, and laughing with friends.