you’d sit me on the highest stool
my throne, your salon chair,
as you twirled each section
like the ballerina on my prized jewelry box
tenderly tugging my hair
with each dip of your hand
weaving in and out every strand
with the most patience
only matriarchs like you can possess
I’d hear the symphony
of beads click-clacking into each other
this choreography
was our sacred morning ritual
woman and girl
against the world
aside the white kitchen counter
I’d one day grow to reach
so goddamn tight on my head
I never hated them
until I reached the age of adolescence
the age of assimilation
I’msosorry
for wearing your dior lip stick behind your back
and for practicing to walk in your heels
until I’d tear the skin on my knees
colliding onto the white tile floor
like stars spilling into black holes
and for letting your mother’s pearls
convince me I was already a woman
I apologize for hating the denim you wore
levi’s thicker than my skull
complying to conform
sweet cinnamon american dream
white picket fences and family picnics on grass
as crisp as ice
green as dollar bills
and I apologize for being everything a man would want me to be
those braids made me feel too
ethnic
too surveilled
spectators counting
down the seconds
until I was supple and submissive enough
how foolish of me
to think it was our job to be beautiful for consumption
no,
your head was always placed
firmly on your shoulders
two hands
peeling platanos into two hemispheres
nourishing the land you came from
and the soil from which you and I bloom
you make it look so
easy
I still mostly wear my hair down
but I raise my head to honor you.
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