I Drowned the Garden
Haircare as love language and a bridge for connection. A memory from high school.
Your afro was untamed, unshaped, dried out, and you shed everywhere. You called it "nappy"; you said you liked it that way even though you got picked on by your family and people at school. Looking big, scruffy, and a little wild was important to you.
Whenever you'd lay your head on something, or fall asleep, the side of your head would look flattened, almost cartoonish. You could make pointed angles, triangles, trapezoids with your hair if it was just squished the right way. You'd walk around all day, oblivious to your goofy appearance, then shrivel up with embarrassment once you looked at a mirror.
In the afternoon you'd fall asleep in your last class and stumble out at the ring of the closing bell. You'd find me, waiting for you, between the trailer classrooms. I'd coo at you until you got to me, "Look at my baby, my sleepy baby," I'd grasp in your direction as if I could pull you faster to me. Sometimes you'd speed up, and crash into my embrace, like this is what you'd been waiting for all day. I would smell your neck and sigh into your skin.
I'd step back and admire you while I cleaned up the mess. Lick the pads of my thumbs and wipe the dried drool off your chin. Pull at the flattened edges of your hair to make your afro big, round, and spiked again. I wanted to make you presentable, in the way you wanted to be seen. I adored you.
For a while after I left you, I kept finding little black ringlets and zig-zag strands of hair. In my bags, in boxes, on my clothing, sheets, towels, even in my own hair. It was painfully easy to tell that your hairs weren't just mine. I couldn't escape you.
It has gotten easier. With each load of laundry, and with each shower, pieces of you rinse away. I have probably cleaned myself and my clothes hundreds of times now, but I cannot wash away the memories of you.
Did you know that I kept your hairs in a box when we were teenagers? Every time you visited and preened yourself in the bathroom mirror, I would gather what you left behind on the counter. I'd show my friends "my collection" and they were disgusted. I took joy out of their horror. They just didn’t understand, because they haven't experienced love like I have.
You were allowed to shower at my house. We took this opportunity to create a ritual between us, performed for years to come. After you washed, I would sit on the couch, or the edge of the bathtub, and you’d sit on the floor between my legs, your head resting back on my lap. Dry curls part to show undergrowth, a dense layer of coils hidden beneath. I’d squirt an ungodly amount of conditioner on your hair, drowning the wilting garden on your head in a haze of coconut and floral scents.
We shared stories of painful scalps in our childhood, but there is none of that tonight. In this bathroom, we are safe, and we are in love. My focus is on weaving my fingers through your scalp, massaging the ridges of your skull, on your eyes closed in contentment. Your slow exhale. If I felt my fingers snag on a tangle, I’d gasp as if I was the one in pain. I would ask “Did that hurt?” and you’d say, “Not at all.” and laugh at my carefulness. After watching you rip knots out of your head all day, it was comforting to take them apart myself, gently. We would sit like that forever, until my fingers pruned.
The next time I fall in love, I want to sit my head in that person's lap and tell them how much I loved you. I want them to massage my scalp while I tell them that I'll never forget how you made me feel. I want to tell them "I think I was supposed to die in that place," and I don't want to be questioned. I just want to be held, as I held you, in all of our glory.