Boyish
It sounds a little mundane, but I want to try to turn a few moments at the barber into something significant. I cut my hair short, which was a complete shock to my mom. Rooted in tradition, I realized that she feared me. She feared that I looked like a boy, that I looked "queer." Something irrevocably changed, and it goes beyond hair. This piece will describe that moment before the snips, and what they mean for my relationship with my mom.
Amma doesn’t look at me the same way.
She used to love my hair.
It was long
Natural
It used to curl a little at the end and form little waves
It was deep and dark, almost a perfect black
And she would oil it to make it even richer
weaving Love and Tradition
Into my hair.
Now that’s dead.
Last Saturday, I was determined.
Nothing could stop me
Because that hair
That hair she loved
I loathed.
While she saw waves,
I felt weight.
A weight on my back
A weight, omnipresent
A weight within myself.
It was like a little seed
Planted in my brain, I don’t know when
But I had cared for it
Watered it
Let it grow.
Its roots
Permeating my thoughts.
It was persistent.
It became a passion.
A poison.
But
I had ignored it.
I was scared of it.
What it said about me.
What it changed about me.
And what it would expose
About me.
Because now, my hair speaks volumes.
I see their eyes
Their realization
Their recognition of that seed
That shame, seared deep within myself
Scarred my family.
Amma is now careful around me.
Our conversations are fragile.
They stretch and bend
Twist and twine
Are careful to not touch
Anything that would collapse.
Beneath them,
Embedded in them
Hiding in them,
Is a fear both of us have.
They dangle
They are a measure
Of the person I have become
And the person she has lost.
We both don’t know how to escape
From the superficiality.
We are both lost.
I thought cutting my hair would be liberating
It was.
But now that weight consumes her
And so, it consumes me.
Editor: Cydney V., Joyce S., Charlotte C.