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.