Welcome to the fifth day of our 30/30!
Your prompt today is:
Describe a memory of someone brushing your hair as a child.
Alternatively, write an ode to your hair.
Guidelines, if you want them:
- Posting your response is not required
- Feel free to post your response  🙂
- This is not meant to be the perfect first draft – respond without hesitation for 5-7 minutes, then keep going if you want to
- While our prompts are geared towards poetry, we welcome all kinds of artists
- Tips & encouragement are here
QuillsEdge Press 
// ode to my hair
hair, locks, tresses, mane,/my reason for vanity,/
you frame my face, my being,/my personality, you run amuck,/
paint my mirror/ with your abundance,/
your lack of direction,/ you do as you will,/
ravage the eyes of men,/ you run from the root,
startle from the shoot,/ none of that glossy/
salon straight coiffed/ look for you, oh no,/
you stand out, you bedhead/, tousled, windswept
in waves,/ rebellious, rabble-rouser,/ rambunctious,
something he grabs onto,/passionately/ but cannot tame./
calm you with scented oils i cannot,/ you wild creature/
you auburn pixie of luminosity,/ full of surprises,/ you bounce
with the energy /of a thousand suns, /unpredictably tangled/
in my fingers,/ you withstand my moods,/ as i color, chop, blow-dry/
you to glory,/ put you through avatars/ you never imagine,/ you makeover
scapegoat./ for a dead cell/ you do pretty well/ filling coffers/ of many an accented stylist/
to keratin or not/ is the hair-raising question/
the rest is just / a tease.
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Pingback: #NationalPoetryMonth’16 Round-up (Day 5 ) | Bonespark~
What I Want When I Get a Haircut
What I want when I get a haircut
is to become someone else—
younger. . thinner. . . happier.
I dream of heavy blonde bangs
framing and enlarging large blue
eyes, still, perhaps, my best feature.
Yet as soon as my haircutter etches
a precise part on white skin-bone
and scissors off hair to eyebrows,
I suddenly remember what
I don’t like about me in bangs.
My hair isn’t thick, it’s thin;
wispy bangs require daily
shampoos, constant combing.
They’ll grow out, he says, seeing
my mirrored disappointment.
But I also remember savagely
pinning to the side strands too long
for bangs, too short for anything else.
Driving home I berate myself
for falling headlong once again into
the abyss between fantasy and reality.
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After big sister’s lush dark curls
mother despaired of my pale
fine flyaway straight hair
not enough heft for braids
not enough docility for freedom
She settled on whiskbrooms
or so we called them
mini pony tail under each ear
out of my face / out of the way
out of any idea of pretty
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30/30 Day 5
a hair braiding
me, just past eleven, already using
store bought pads and still in braids.
me, on the floor, legs crossed, hands
in lap. head bobbing here, there, while
she, my mom, nineteen years older than
me, sits on a chair with my head between
her legs, combs, brushes and parts my hair,
while i feel the tug and push of her hands.
she makes square-box sections across my
head. she plaits into three part braids.
one braid on top. one on each side.
four in the back of my head, just so.
she makes conversation with her daughter,
me. she tells me that Lorraine, our
young neighbor next door, who is
a few years older than me, is fast.
she warns me that Lorraine is so fast,
she knows how not to get caught. me,
thinking, caught doing what? she, still
plating my hair and never tells me. she
just warns me not to do what Lorraine
is doing, cause i am not as smart as
Lorraine and will get caught. me, still
wonder what Lorraine will get caught at.
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I brushed my granddaughters’ hair this morning.
The older was having rock-n-roll day at school,
she wanted a sideways ponytail;
the younger wanted the same hair as her sister.
The older said that feels good as the comb gathered up her hair,
the brushing done in advance of the styling;
the younger said ouch, but persevered.
I explained that I would have to pull tight for the pony to stay in well,
the older understood, the younger persevered.
Both knew I had the experience of grooming
three daughters including their mom.
I reminisced with the younger that my mom
would have watered down all the straggling hairs.
I have always claimed that the real test of self-assurance
would be to shave my head, remove the focus of so much attention.
I have not done that, not because I lack self-assurance,
but because there is something in the stroke of brush and comb,
a lineage of joy and pain in those strands of hair
touched, pulled, teased, braided
that is indeed the strength that Samson surrendered.
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When I was a little girl, I would lay back in my warm
bath water, swirling my long blond hair left to right
like a mermaid. Momma would come with the
ivory soap, scrubbing my scalp with her nails,
kneading with her knuckles, shaking my head like an
agitator in a washing machine. With one
more rinse, I would rise, wrap my towel like a regal
cloak, fashion my pink turban about my head, and don
my paisley nightgown. For a few moments, I
was an Indian princess. I would then ascend
to my throne while Momma, bracing her hand against
my head, raked through the strands with a comb,
scraping through the knots, me, wincing back to reality
as my head was yanked back with each thrust. And when all was
said and done, Momma would lay down on
her pillow and ask me to run my fingers gently through
her hair while she dozed, because it felt so good.
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