#43 My Hair Rant (Again)

As you may or may not know, I have an on going struggle with my hair. A struggle that has plagued me since I was old enough to know what the word "nappy" meant. Don't get me wrong, I accept my hair for what it is, but I won't lie and say that very often in grade school I never looked longingly at the straight, waist length, blonde hair of the girl who sat in front of me in literature.

I always feel like there's another person telling me that femininity is shiny, and smooth, and bouncy. It's never kinky or curly and that irritates the he'll out of me.

God, I hate hair product commercials. Garnier Fructis will be happy to show me a million different pictures of how silky smooth, wavy, straight, or curly they can make your hair. It's like "Come dance in my sexy, sexy hair."

I think I'm just waiting for the day that people decide afros can be sexy, too.

You see, I have a problem with people calling my Afro cute. Like it's some sort of novelty item, or a joke. Like they don't understand that "this is my hair." "This is an actual hairstyle."

Quotes from people about my hair:

"It's so coarse!"

"It's so cute!"

"It's so funny!"

"It's so thick!"

"It's so weird!"

"It's so unkempt!"

"It's so thick!"

"It's so mysterious!"

"I would never want an Afro, but it looks cool on you!"

Do you know what it feels like when someone tells you that they never want their hair to look like yours? It's fucking hurtful. It's so fucking hurtful.

Also, don't look at my hair when you're speaking to me. You know who you are. You glance up, look extremely disturbed for a second, then look back at my face.

So by now, you may or may not be wondering, "If I hate hair so fucking much, why are you growing it out again?"

Because maybe, by the time I'm finished, people won't see me as a petting zoo anymore.

RANT OVER

#42 Feeling Everything and Nothing

I was going to right about how I was feeling, but hey- why not a poem?

How are you feeling today?

Well, there are good feels
And bad feels
And really, really strange feels

Big feels
small feels
And hardly ever noticed feels

There's confusion
And delusion
And far too much intrusion

There is happy
There is sad
There is burning raging mad

Feels like nervous
Feels intense
Feels like edge of seat suspense

I could be quiet
I could be cozy
I could be obnoxious and nosy

Feeling wanted
Feeling used
Feeling tried and abused

I have felt angry
I have felt old
I have felt bought, sold, controlled

I have felt electric
I have felt gay
I have felt like a new flower of May

Soon, I will be smooth
I will be ice
If I say once, I don't twice

Please melt me
Make me warm
Make these cold feels take form

Try again
With little time
To make me convivial and sublime

I want to love
I want to hate
I want my feels
To recreate my own idea of wellbeing.

One that is not "I don't feel like I'm drowning today."

Not "I can keep myself from falling apart one more day."

Not "I really want to see if tomorrow will be better."

I want it be happy
I want it to be whole
I want it to feel something like... A soul.


Context: I have been feeling really tired and confused lately. And I'm feeling so much, so often, that it feels like I'm feeling nothing at all. I feel a little soulless.

Happy Saturday, everybody!