ODE Poem: WHEN I WAS LITTLE III, by Dayna Pratt

willow tree.

by Dayna Pratt
When I was little,
I prayed for straight hair.
Times when my mother took
me and my sisters to the grocery store,
I would rush to the hair section,
visiting the young Black girls
that lived on the pink and green
relaxer boxes.

Their smiling faces
under the fluorescent lights,
airbrushed to obscurity,
reminded me of what I would never have.
They seemed happier than me,
as though the second
the relaxer melted away their hair texture,
all of their problems
and insecurities
melted away with it.
I wanted that same happiness.

My screen became tormented by
women with loose curls
telling me how to define my coils.
Saying how easy it was
to grow to love
their natural state.
But the world said theirs was ‘good’
and mine nappy.
And theirs neat
but mine messy.

That a big chop is all it would take
is the biggest lie ever told
because where their hair grew back as springs
mine puffed out in folds
like a willow tree.

So I found my love
in the smiles
of little Black girls
who gazed up at me
and saw me in them,
and them in me.

I found my love
in spaces
where my skin
was my most defining feature
and Black hair
was Black hair
all bad hair
because to them,
it was all the same.

I found my love
in decades of essays.
Where my hair
became my Blackness
and womanhood
and who I was
was finally my own.

But I still haven’t straightened my hair
scared that my sense of self is a lie
and that once the heat burns away
my curls
my love for them,
for myself,
will be gone with it.