#mostly fact with a dash of fiction thrown in for spice

[loose-and-goose]

ways to say i love you

Grandma says,

“Hold your ear”

As she lifts the pressing comb from the hot plate

And my curls become flat the night before Easter Sunday

Under her shaking hands

Mom twists

My hair tight and wraps a ballie around the end

She taps my shoulder to say,

“All done”

And I get up from the floor between her legs 

For the first time in two hours

As my younger sister takes my place

And mom leans forward to start the process a third time

My crush

Fiddles with the bantu knots on my head

As we do homework together 

And I am sure he doesn’t understand what it is

To be the first person outside of my family

To touch there

My older sister asks,

“Does it hurt?”

When I flinch and blink back tears

As she yanks the crochet hook, inexperienced

In and out of the cornrows my mother planted

Before my first spring break with friends

My cousin says,

“You got enough hair on your head for three people!”

As she steps away from my chair

And welcomes another client into her salon

A break from installing the faux locs

Before I go abroad 

To a place where no one can help me

My new friend’s mother laughs

“Girl, you got a lot of hair!”

As I sit between her legs, months later, six hands untwining the locs on my head

My new friend’s mother

Who flew thirteen hours to spend a few days with her daughter

Pulling synthetic hair from between the cornrows my cousin planted,

Letting me sit between her legs

And feel something familiar

My younger sister sighs,

“I forgot how much hair you have.”

She grabs another rubber band

Wraps it around my roots and the bundle of Kanekalon

Carefully braiding down to the ends

For the fiftieth time in four hours

Because we’re in a pandemic, the salons are closed, and I have a plane to catch

My white friend laughs,

“I have never done this before!”

He’s only seen it in YouTube videos

I should be grateful

As he dips the ends of my hair

Into boiling water

Resealing loosening strands

I should be grateful

But I am angry to the verge of weeping.

Wishing my mother and sisters were not thirteen hours away

Loathing the pale palms bracing the scalding pot

All while knowing they are just trying to tell me that they love me

My loctitian wipes

Her hands on a towel

After seven hours of washing, parting, twisting,

“You look so good!”

She says it and she runs her fingers through the neat rows she created and I 

believe her

My baby cousin texts,

“Can someone help me?

I don’t think I can finish my hair in time for school.”

And the three of us pack into the car and drive

Across town

To let her sit between my older sister’s legs

While eight hands tell her that they love her for hours