My hair has always
been a sensitive subject
“Let me touch it”
“Your hair is nice”
“I want to do your hair for you”
“Is that your natural hair color?”
There are a few people that fuss about my hair
I am not one of them…mostly

My grandmother use to do my hair for school when I was younger.
She’d swat me in the head if I was sleeping and moved.
Heaven forbid I moved in my sleep.
She would also tell me about my hair, as if I didn’t know
“You need to do something about your hair”
Does my hair insult? Does it scream to someone?
“You just don’t know. I’m dangerous when I’m not in place.
Beware all that must look upon my hair. It will eat your soul.”

My mother fusses over my hair too. I come home
shamefully hiding my hair. I washed it myself, and somehow
I lack to skill of a master hair dresser. My mother finally takes one look at the
terribleness that is my hair and tells me about it, as if I don’t already know.
“You need to do something about your hair.”
Apparently, I’m offending her with my hair.
I have committed this hair sin that must be corrected.
But I have not committed the worse hair sin.
“If you dye your hair, don’t come home.”
I still like coming home, so my hair is not purple.

Then there is my hair dresser. We’ve known
each other over ten years.
She has done my hair through
some good times and some bad times. She has told
me how wonderful my hair is. She has witnessed
my hair break combs.
I told her of a time I wanted a haircut.
She nearly cried.
So now I just tell people,
“Don’t play with my hair, or my hairdresser will cry”.
I mean it too.

I have hair dreams
I’m walking somewhere unimportant
and someone, a faceless stranger,
says “Hey, did you know your hair is sticking out?”
In which my hair laughs manically and grows
beyond my control.
It infects the world, and
it coils around my neck.
I cannot get it off as it
Becomes tighter and tighter
Then there is blackness
and I wake up yelling
“******, hair! Stop killing everything in my dreams!”

My hair is uneven.
No matter what is done to my hair, one
side is always thinker and longer than the other
I shall never have that lovely, perfect
ponytail or bun. My hair around my edges it
far too short for that. A hair dresser called Cookie
once said about my hair
“It looks like your hair is running for president,
And this side is winning!”
If you cut me straight
down the middle, you still wouldn’t get
a symmetric hairline, cause even then,
my hair is shorter in the back and gets
shorter with stress and life. It’s like
my hair laughs at order and symmetry,
which bothers me every time I see hair
that looks like it was created by angels.
This is probably one of the reasons I’m like
“******* hair!”
In response, my hair seems to say
“******* too!”
and laughs at me in the mirror.

As for me, I like my hair, but it’s pretty much there
and I have to tolerate it. I don’t like people putting
their hands through it cause
I have no idea where their hands have been.
I always give them
this blank stare of doom
when they ask to touch it
and I don’t know them.
Who are they?
Where have their hands been?
I feel like they will infect my hair
with nameless whatnots
and all my hair will fall out
What will they say then?
“I’m sorry I made your hair fall out”?
By then
It will be far too late for an apology.

When I go to bed, I don’t
tie up my hair or roll it.
I am far too lazy and indifferently
uncaring to do so.
I can still hear my grandmother telling me
“Roll up your hair when you go to bed”
and how upset she would
be because I didn’t care.
This is a war we fought for years.
It always ended in a stalemate,
and start again the next day
Everytime I wake up, my hair
shows me what live action anime hair
looks like. My hair stands up
against logic and gravity
sticking out in ways and paths
that some would deem
impossible without help, had they not
met my hair. My father would take one look
at me
and say
“You look so natural, child”
in a sweet but condescending voice.
I’d roll my eyes. If he really
liked my hair, he would have told me so.

When I was under eight years old,
I accidently cut my hair
trying to cut rubber bands.
The result was chunks
of my hair liberated
from my head. One of my uncles
came over that day.
I was explained to him
of what I did, this young
hair sin. He laughed at me,
so then I experienced young hair shame.
I didn’t cut my own hair after that.
Instead, I cut my brother’s…

My hair means many things to different people
Even a three year old that has no
idea what the weight and importance
hair has on the world
has told me
“One day I will do your hair”
little does she know, I’ll be ready for
her when she gets older. She will not
be doing my hair for me.
That is, unless she becomes a hairdresser.

I never really understood why
there’s so much to be said about
my hair.
This is my hair always telling things
to the people who see it, even me.