"Just" Hair

White girl tried to tell me “it’s just hair”

She caught all the heat

There’s hot combs, broken brushes and tender heads that would respectfully disagree

There are bald heads, $500 weaves and 3 yr olds getting kiddie perms that would say “girl you trippin”

There are young black girls yanked by their barrettes by teasing boys that cannot say “just”

Qualified women denied jobs for their cornrows watching the Kardashians praised for “Kylie Jenner” braids that cannot say “just”

Me, as a little girl praying to a white God “oh please make me pretty with STRAIGHT hair” that cannot say “just”

Ancestors plucked from their continents like cotton who could preserve no culture than what was attached to their heads that could not say “just”

& I’m sorry if I cut you off but it’s “just” because your “opinion” is rooted in the invalidation of my humanity, culture, history and value

So “just” because you can roll out of bed barely brushing the hairs on your little white ead cuz you got it like that

and my equivalent of that is a 20-minute wash-and-go

Does not make it “just”