Comb
The following poem was written for a creative writing class that I took in university. It’s very raw, because unlike the other two poems on this site, it wasn’t workshopped.
The girl forces me
through the tangled ends
of her still-damp curls.
Snap!
A strand breaks in the struggle.
Still she refuses to let up,
determined to win the battle.
Another hard stroke: I draw
red lines in a neat row
over the right side of her scalp.
She doesn’t even flinch.
It’s funny
in a really sad way
how someone could be so at odds
with something that grows
out of her own body
(like if I despised
one of my plastic teeth
or couldn’t stand
the sight of my curved,
purple handle).
Stubborn, headstrong, can never
be fully tamed: she and her hair
are more alike than she realizes.
It’s going to be an eternal stand-off,
I can tell.
