At 11, I thought I hated my hair.
\nAll frizz and fluff and just
\ntoo large. My mother told me
\nI wanted sleek. I wanted straight.
\nI wanted what my sister had.
\nNothing could get me there. <\/p>\n
She tried braids, but fuzz
\ndanced at the surface. Even
\nweighed down with thirty seconds
\nof Aqua Net, its will was too strong. <\/p>\n
She tried hot oil, pulling
\nand scalding, and yanking with
\neach whimper. My scalp bled
\nand burned, and my hair shone
\nbrightly, a halo floating above me. <\/p>\n
She tried a curling iron
\nthat always burned my ears.
\nThere are scars that mark
\nher slips. They stayed for an hour,
\nmaybe, until they cooled, then
\nmy hair grew, the heat fertile soil
\nto bloom. <\/p>\n
She tried hot curlers, their spikes
\nholding them fast, the burning
\nprolonged over night, a cap
\ncovering my head to hold
\nthe heat in, and the itching itching
\nitching that I couldn\u2019t scratch.
\nThey fell in the early morning. <\/p>\n
She tried a perm. I ran
\nfull speed through trees and grass,
\nzig zagging across an acre
\nto escape the chemical smell
\nand sting. My hair blossomed
\ninto a sunflower, reaching away
\nand toward the light. <\/p>\n
She taught me how to pull
\nit into a bun, to gel it all down
\nslick against my skull. It only lasted
\nto the afternoon. She gave me
\nmousse with the strongest hold
\nto tame it if I could. I could not. <\/p>\n
I fought. Win. Lose. Win. Lose. <\/p>\n
I grew tired. I stopped fighting.
\nI conceded. My hair slowed and showed
\nwhy she couldn\u2019t be flattened,
\nburned, poisoned to fit
\nwhat my mother wanted, what I thought
\nI wanted. There was never
\nanything wrong with us. My hair
\nwould never be sleek. It will never
\nbe straight like my sister\u2019s.
\nAll she wanted was peace and to curl. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At 11, I thought I hated my hair. All frizz and fluff and just too large. My mother told me I wanted sleek. I wanted straight. I wanted what my sister had. Nothing could get me there. She tried braids, but fuzz danced at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100751,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100745\/revisions\/100751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}