Ageless Chaos - Arielle Arbushites
poetry ☆
poetry ☆
I had only just arrived for my appointment
as she was savoring the last moments of hers.
I gave her a silent smile, a lifted thumb,
as the cape slid from her narrow shoulders
and she hopped down from the salon chair
with a swiftness that startled me.
She was over three decades ahead of me—
yet four violet streaks blazed a trail
through her white, untamed curls,
a glorious halo that refused to rest
against her sharp collarbone.
My compliment caught in my throat,
but she rescued it.
“I like chaos in my hair,”
she offered, as explanation, not gratitude.
“Not in my house.”
She waltzed to the front desk to pay.
“Not in my life.”
She shook her ringlets, their mischief defying gravity.
“Just in my hair.”
She lingered like a child
reluctant to leave the playground.
Her face was a map of patterned mayhem,
lines etched by joy and time.
“Goodbye, wild ladies,”
she sang as she slipped out the door,
addressing my stylist and me.
I stood in silence, spellbound.
I had witnessed a rarity—
a gem, the eighth wonder of the world,
a sermon disguised as style.
I sat and when the cape encircled me,
my reflection was altered:
I had inherited her legacy of energy.
I stared into my own eyes,
a whimsical wish forming in my soul:
may my years be wild in the right places,
may my spirit wrinkle into art,
may I streak my days with freedom,
and never forget
that beauty can be chosen, even created,
and that defiance can live quietly,
like purple fire in white ash.
Arielle Arbushites is many things, but above all she is a licensed social worker who has been a writer all her life. She has mainly published poetry on social platforms and lit mags or journals, including upcoming work in Neologism and The Orchards Poetry Journal. Arielle lives and writes in Lehigh Valley, PA where she balances motherhood, hospice work, and poetry as a means of understanding what it means to be alive and connected.
