‘Do you want me to fix your hair?’

 ‘You can come over, and we can get that done’

I have received this comment more than I can count over my life

A girl with curly BIG hair that seemed like a wild mane

To other people it was a sign that it needed to be tamed

Society’s death kiss of teenage insecurities soon fell on me

I began to think that I wasn’t pretty

Society had this notion that what made colored women pretty was the ten dollar box at the grocery store

That anti curl curing miracle that would burn your scalp clean off and erode a soda pop can

That ‘we can make you look and feel pretty in a box’ guarantee labeled and printed in bold letters on the sides and lips of this box

Chemically altered to be something that they were never meant to be

Changed at the root to fit in to that pretty box guarantee

After my first hair appointment, at age fourteen, I too started to feel pretty  

Even if that pretty meant giving up me

Giving up me

Giving up me

Giving up my roots just to think it would feel good

Only to transpire into a world of desire lead by the oppression that submitting myself meant giving up my self-image

For what?

For those 365 days of keeping it straight

Of clinging onto my holy straightener in fear of my mane

Six years of pure loss than gain

 Now I fight years of destroying my hair

Of finding my self-image and reclaiming it for myself

Reclaiming it for myself

Reclaiming myself

Some days I look like an animal in the zoo

With a mane so BIG BOLD and TRUE

With big wild hair that stretches far past my chin

Laughs and ridicules on their lips

I won’t let in

Moving past there negative minds

Now it’s time for me to regain my life

And let my hair take me on an adventure of a lifetime