Brushing my hair at five was no easy task<\/p>\n
Dads arms were as soft as non laboring hands pulling and twisting my head and neck to stay straight <\/p>\n
A straight part meant everything
\nIt\u2019s too soft to stay styled so we gotta do this spook
\nHe\u2019d called me that since I was born off colored (nearly white) for a black girl
\nHe line the middle part with stinky blue grease then condition the ends with petroleum jelly<\/p>\n
Anything left in the comb or brush
\nHe\u2019d lump in his ashtray and burn right away<\/p>\n
I\u2019d always cry
\nDo you want birds nest for your hair
\nHe\u2019d always reply<\/p>\n
Long time ago
\nEven before I was born
\nLittle girls didn\u2019t want their hair burnt
\nWanted to save it or clog up the sea
\nWell one girl saved all her dying hair underneath her pillow
\nThey lived by the equator so she slept with her window open year round
\nOne day a swoop of birds came into town and claimed the perfect nesting place
\nThing is there were so many birds after they used all the hair under the pillows
\nThe rest of the flock rested in her hair
\nShe could never get them to leave and now she never leaves her home because she\u2019s home to the birds<\/p>\n
If you burn your ends it gives your power back to the air to circulate through you again
\nIf you don\u2019t your hair will get so tangled it\u2019ll resemble a birds nest<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want no nesting hair<\/p>\n
I\u2019d cry and let him reply and finish braiding my freshly pruned pigtails<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brushing my hair at five was no easy task Dads arms were as soft as non laboring hands pulling and twisting my head and neck to stay straight A straight part meant everything It\u2019s too soft to stay styled so we gotta do this spook…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,1136,441,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous","category-official-marathon-prompts","category-poetry-prompt-responses","category-poetry-prompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117486","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\/4290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117486"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117667,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117486\/revisions\/117667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}