Apology Letter To My Hair

It didn't feel like love at first, 

more of an itch

A restlessness in my salon chair

I was nineteen 

and my mother had just instructed the hairdresser to fix my hair. 

There was something eerily familiar about this scene:

The tools and scissors 

Gloves

A chemical smell

And clinical hands 

We sat in line like patients awaiting treatment

And how I wanted to be healed,

to look like the girls in the magazines. 

For the boy I liked to think I was pretty. 

And then, at last

Silky soft and straight 

It slipped through my fingers, 

it flowed down my neck

It did what I said

But deep down I knew, 

I knew who I was. 

Wild and untamed 

And I couldn't be contained with a container
of relaxer cream. 

The real me, hiding in the edges, 

waiting for safety 

She'd creep out soon, by Tuesday next week

It's admirable, really

How she rebelled again and again

It struck me then, she didn't want to be fixed

I kept going to the doctor's office 

when I wasn't sick. 

Except ashamed, really. 

For rejecting myself. 

What came out of my scalp. 

I'd like to say it all changed that day, 
post-epiphany 

But I went back, over and over 

It would take a lifetime to surrender 

To truly love her

The message was everywhere :

You want to love your hair? 

Give it love and care

She taught me something new 

She wasn't hard to manage, 

She wasn't meant to be managed 

I had to care for who she was

Not who I wanted her to be

That was love. 

I loosened my grip on the brush 

And handled her gently. 

I let her run loose and happy, free

How beautiful she is. 

My past faults in mind, 

I write these words of apology.