With art from Laylie Frazier
I was first aware
Of my strange woollen hair
When my mother twisted it into three puffs
When colorful ribbons trailed down to my shoulders
I swung my head to and fro
With colors I carefully chose
And allowed the plastic tips to play music with my earrings
And glint in the springtime sun
I did not expect,
To cause such an upset
When I entered the classroom,
When I revealed my woollen hair
Over the laughs and taunts
My mind was fraught
It could not see what was so different about me
It led my trembling fingers to my hair
I pulled out the ribbons
And made a quick decision
I took to my mother a photo
I put my hopes in the image
A new vision of my future
With hair thick and straighter than a ruler
I said ‘I want to look like her’
I did not see that though her hair was black, her skin was not
My mother applied the medicine
And I perched over the bathroom basin
As I tightly clutched the picture
As one holds a promise of a future
I waited for days, weeks, years
To become my future and silence my fears
That my hair was stuck woollen
That I would never quite understand why they laughed
As time passed
I decided to give up the dance
I watched her in the mirror
I stepped into herself
And decided to love her fully
Even as her hair began to turn woolly
With untamed frizz
With unruly curls
I looked back on why they laughed
And realized it was down to chance
That my hair was woollen
That their hair was straw
And so I spoke to the wind on her behalf
To carry the music of her ribbons and HER laugh
So she would remember her colorful ribbons
So she would remember the springtime sun
Artwork ‘Wildflowers’ provided by Laylie Frazier, contact artist for prints.
