#native mother

Sometimes the things you hated as a kid, you yearn for in your adulthood. I’m so gentle when I do my hair, but I secretly miss my mother doing it for me. Those mornings were sacred, and in a home where anger and pain was common, that was the most safe I felt. My mother and I, the bathroom door a shield. The tight pull on my scalp. Her swatting me with the brush to sit still when I swear I was. My braids will never be as secure as they were before, and the ache in my heart is sometimes harder than the soreness of my scalp back in the day. Every morning, I’d wake up and she’d prepare my hair for school. I let the other girls mess with those braids, sometimes I got embarrassed and took them out, wanting to be more like them. Now I’m safe in my adulthood, but my mother is halfway across the country from me, and I braid my hair in the morning when on call with her, to try and feel that same security I did before.