Hair
If I had a dime for every time someone told me to straighten my hair I would be rich.
But if I had a dime for every time I told myself I needed to, then maybe I would be richer.
See, I never really liked my natural hair.
I didn’t know how to lay my edges.
I didn’t know how to make it curly,
But I did know that straight was in.
Straight was the girl I saw and thought,
“Wow she’s beautiful”
Curly was the girl I saw and thought,
“I wish I was born with good hair too.”
I didn’t think my hair was bad,
I just thought that it wasn’t pretty.
After all of the years of damaging my hair
I still remember celebrating the first time
that I got it relaxed..
It was the first time I was brainwashed into thinking natural wasn’t beautiful enough,
and I always thought to myself how I can be Dominicana with nappy ass hair
because back then I didn’t know that us Latinas came in many different forms.
I was so accustomed to the american life and social standards of what a Latina even was.
I didn’t fit their description.
I wasn’t light enough.
I wasn’t curvy enough.
I wasn’t enough and soon I took my pride and hung it on the rack till it dried up hard, and shriveled like the naps that stood out the back of my neck every time I put my hair in a bun.
I look at myself in the mirror today and see a girl who doesn’t want to be changed..just wants to feel accepted.
I’ve let my seeds grow with all the nutrients it needs now. I added water to the desert and it became a waterfall with everything in between.
Just the right amount of beautiful. Just the right amount of natural.
