(Another Thorny Crown 5 (2011))
Rebellious armies of tiny tightly coiled frizz
threatened my territory. My slicked back security blanket was dripping of
thread and flakey police warning me that my scalp was slowly becoming a
breeding place for lint and the unwanted kinky assembly.
I squinted my eyes to make sure I still had at
least an inch of my hairline left. I
pulled back the weave to expose an oasis- like- mirage.
I gasped inwardly at how my natural hair threatened to embarrass me underneath this perfect facade
of straight weave right from the deep rural parts of Brazil or the poor bald temple
women of India fully dedicated to their gods.
My hate-love relationship with the skillfully spun
dead horse tail was something worth living for.
That straight identity card was what had helped me
over the years hide my African shame of bush!
That mess was no way in hell going to rare its ugly
head out of this perfectly stretched Asian mane.
I grabbed the tub filled with the anti-African concoction
and crunched it grudgingly into my hair.
Very fragile strands that felt like feathers left
on a plucked chicken wept for the millionth time but I was determined to hide
this wooly lump.
Twenty minutes of the foul smelling emulsion and
my scalp was a 400 degree oven. Hot and furious, burning and tingling like
little pieces of fat dripping from muchomo on a hot sigiri.
I ran to the bathroom half panicked half ecstatic to
wash the creamy devil out. I watched it
rinse out with a whole chunk of my hair.
I gasped in horror, knowing that the price of
beauty was pain and baldness if you were born with kaweke.
A girl with kaweke
had to make peace with God and her mother for cursing her with the obscenity of
heavily curled hair that would not grow, was dry as a dessert and most
importantly threatened to expose your Africa
to the world.
My hair had generally been in the “bad category”
since I started ‘consciously’ growing it out so why was I at all surprised at
the act of my hair melting away like hot lava.
My hair was all straight now but the big patches echoed
consequences of inferiority complex.
However, I told myself all was “right” now. My
army of angry bush power had been quenched heavily with the almighty black hair
savior- the relaxer.
Everything was now orthodox to match my Asian
helmet tightly clung to my scalp so fitted I couldn’t breathe.
For a second in my pain, I spat inwardly at the agony
my scalp had to endure just to look like a cat bathed in the heavy rains.
I blamed my hair stylist, my mother and the Great Lord Almighty for the
infamous curse that had been bestowed upon me and many a black brethren.
That curse my people was the curse of ‘stunted,
nappy, breaking negro hair’.