My Mane

Dear mane, I used to be ashamed to say that you’re mine

On the playground, getting harassed with questions like:

“Were you born with braids on your head?”, “How does it grow so fast?”,

Or my favorite of all, “How do you get it to feel like a loofah?” 

Passing through life wondering how long the badgering would last

Then one day I heard about the natural hair movement

13-year-old me yearning to have hair like the racially ambiguous women on my screen

Only to later realize that the only woman I need to love is me and

Every strand of this coily, curly, multifaceted keratin