Twenty years ago, my fingers first discovered your alien presence with that careless brush though plentiful hair.  My hand spontaneous recoiled with displeasure of your small, distinctive lump of something unwanted. I brushed the hair back over to safely hide your intrusion and sat uneasily on the coach with my date.  

In private, I boldly examined your bulbus form, now pushing up and outwards in to the mole I grew to recognize as me.  Now a part of my life, over the next fifteen years, I periodically examined your slow progression in to a noticeable feature, still gratefully hidden by the hairline.  

“What the hell is that?” yelped another girl, five years later.

“Just a mole,” I self-consciously defended.

“Isn’t that a sign of ill-health?” she sheepishly pondered.

Secretly believing her tone of disappointment, and living in poverty at the time, expediency meant I found a way of keeping you out pictures, or guide a wandering hand from your discovery; determined to keep your existence known only with the barber.

Of course, time was slowly revealing the future, and thinning hair made you increasingly noticeable. Thick black hairs once sheltered your existence, but were turning grey and sparser in number and in the last few years, your contrasting form against my paler skin, has caught the eye of many a failed date.  

“You still got that?” My brother laughed, while on his boat a couple of months back.  

“It’s fine.”

I’d accepted you and there’s something comforting in the spiritual aspect acceptance, yet last month, a work-colleague brought the matter to a head.

“You know, you can get that cut off?” Steve casually grinned, “I had one of them, takes a few minutes and gone!” then glanced at shocked colleagues present.

That night, I met a beautician called Sandrah.

“Yeah, come in,” she beamed; clocking you, “should be one session, ok? Just don’t get the scar wet, or softly pad it dry, and use this cream after every shower.”

Yesterday, nine days later, you fell as a small disk of dried skin. Thanks to you I learned to accept the worst of me and thanks for giving the parting gift of a little more self-esteem.