Pelo Malo

My hair, the tightly wound curls of the uneven afro I wake in. Met with comb and brush, water and cream, rhythmic tugging, strands pop as I mold my hair around a face twisted with frustration I do not understand. This face, laced with the same genes of my hair, my legs, my arms and the hands that on days too quiet contemptuously hold the flatiron to my hair. Smoke rises, hot metal searing each rebellious strand. 

I look at myself and see traces of an Indian ancestor. With half-closed eyes, a faint glance of her, my great, great, great grandmother—the Indian from India, or maybe she is the one from further back, the Taino in Puerto Rico or Jamaica. I look in the mirror with eyes now wide in wonder. I touch my hair—soft and silky, thin and limp. So thick before—or was it? The remnants of him, my English ancestor, no Scottish, my grandmother said. I wonder if he loved her. Did she love him, and did she love the Spaniard, too? Was it love or was it rape? I should ask her if the thinness of my hair was conceived in a beautiful or tragic moment. If tragic, what should I think when I straighten it? Should I see it as a relic of a broken past or the cryptic symbol of times forever forgotten?. Long straight, thin hair or thick, curly short hair. All is me and not me perhaps, it is her.

When I admit my confusion in choosing aloud, I am told to relax my hair—the permanence in straightening. If I do, what will she say? Relaxer, taming the ancestor on the long boat ride, the one with the scars on her back, the one that watched it all and saw it all but could not change it all. Instead she held it in the locks of her hair and passed it on to her daughter who passed it on to her daughter and on and on, all the kinks and curls and waves, and now to me. What do I do with this? Carry it on. What does it mean to hold the flatiron up to my hair? What does it mean then, to uncurl my curls?

My hair, the tightly wound curls of the uneven afro I wake in. Met with comb and brush, water and cream, rhythmic tugging, strands pop as I mold my hair around a face twisted with frustration I do not understand. This face, laced with the same genes of my hair, my legs, my arms and the hands that on days too quiet contemptuously hold the flatiron to my hair. Smoke rises, hot metal searing each rebellious strand.

I look at myself and see traces of an Indian ancestor. With half-closed eyes, a faint glance of her, my great, great, great grandmother—the Indian from India, or maybe she is the one from further back, the Taino in Puerto Rico or Jamaica. I look in the mirror with eyes now wide in wonder. I touch my hair—soft and silky, thin and limp. So thick before—or was it? The remnants of him, my English ancestor, no Scottish, my grandmother said. I wonder if he loved her. Did she love him, and did she love the Spaniard, too? Was it love or was it rape? I should ask her if the thinness of my hair was conceived in a beautiful or tragic moment. If tragic, what should I think when I straighten it? Should I see it as a relic of a broken past or the cryptic symbol of times forever forgotten?. Long straight, thin hair or thick, curly short hair. All is me and not me perhaps, it is her.

When I admit my confusion in choosing aloud, I am told to relax my hair—the permanence in straightening. If I do, what will she say? Relaxer, taming the ancestor on the long boat ride, the one with the scars on her back, the one that watched it all and saw it all but could not change it all. Instead she held it in the locks of her hair and passed it on to her daughter who passed it on to her daughter and on and on, all the kinks and curls and waves, and now to me. What do I do with this? Carry it on. What does it mean to hold the flatiron up to my hair? What does it mean then, to uncurl my curls?