Hair Ball
by Betsy Mars
My hair has always been my manestay:
consistent and resistant to changing fashions,
the muted wallflower at the ball.
I refused to part with my part.
Harangues about my bangs met disdain.
Like Samson, my strength was in my length —
so I believed, and so never made the cut.
In my twenties, a flighty fling with a perm proved temp.
I scurried back to the tried and true,
where my hair remained, unaltered.
I had never stressed about my tresses.
A bad hare day meant a wild rabbit ruckus,
outracing Mr. McGregor and his lethal shovel.
But then, through three winters, I hibernated,
wrapped in a cocoon of my own making.
I emerged with my heart in a web of uncertainty.
I coughed up the tangled hairball strands
and entered the body of my true self, now visible.
Back to my roots my mane was a means
to a new end, unmuted.
Purple spread vibrant like tulips in spring.
AUTHOR’S PHOTO CAPTION: Dip-dyed purple hair tips. Posed by my daughter to capture my sense of creative abandon in the summer of 2012.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My hair has endured basically unchanged over time and I was hard-pressed to think of any particularly significant memories regarding it for this prompt. I then remembered a time a couple of years ago after a particularly difficult period in my life when I had essentially gone underground. In the summer when school was out and I had no need to maintain any semblance of professionalism, I decided to finally let loose and allow my daughter to play with my hair. That summer was one of the best of my life — filled with theatre, paint by number art projects, horseback riding — as I returned to the world and enjoyed a sense of fun and creativity in a way that I had never felt entitled to. It was as if, having survived all of the crises and change, I was making up for lost time in embracing life, and my hair reflected that aliveness. In a similar way, my word play in this poem is a departure from my recent poetry and is lighter in tone and content.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Betsy Mars is a Southern California poet, mother, and animal lover with a severe case of travel fever. She has been drawn to writing throughout her life and is finally breaking free of self-doubt as well as the energy-sapping life events of the past couple of years. Her brief foray into hair color experimentation was an expression of that emergence, but now she relies on her writing instead.
Beautiful! A well-earned revival for hair and self…
Thank you! I have never been so bold and have reverted to my more conservative ways, but it served its purpose and I may yet go back to it. I hadn’t thought about what a connection there was between my mindset and my hair until I undertook this poem. I knew that it was a kind of renaissance for me, but I never understood it fully before now.
Reblogged this on chrissiemorrisbrady and commented:
Great word play!
Thank you! I appreciate your support and that you have extended my reach. It is weird and wonderful to have my writing out in the world and so kindly received.
Your welcome! I often reblog poetry.
Beautiful Poem! 🙂
Thank you, Robin! I feel very validated.
Reblogged this on marsmyst's Blog.