A Joy I Once Knew

close group of friends. I Embraced any identity from class-clown to daredevil to delinquent that might let me escape the stigma on my head. By junior year I was exhausted.

One fateful CVS trip later, I had purple hair. It was thirty minutes until my best friend's birthday party and I had a decision to make. After all, I had lived the last five years with a scarlet letter on my skull, how bad could purple hair be by comparison? I left my house head held high, looking like a mop recently used at the Welch’s factory.

I met my first girlfriend that night, and no one at the party even so much as giggled at my hair. I couldn’t believe it. Part of me was upset, how could purple hair be ok, but not red? Then I Realized that my hair color didn’t actually matter, the way I carried myself did.

After a year or so the purple faded and the red returned, but the person I was, remained. I Fell in love with theater and writing and my hair went back to just being a trait. Though when Ithink about my identity, I know I wouldn’t be the person I am today without my hair. Sure, I still get the odd inappropriate comment or weird exchange: “Wow I never thought I would kiss a ginger,” or the always popular lists of people the person I’m talking to knows that have red hair too. But I take the bad and the good together, I wouldn’t have had to become clever or humorous if not for my hair. I wouldn’t know what it feels like, to a lesser extent, to be totally alone and discriminated against. And though I can tell you what the dirt behind the ballfields tastes like (abit bland but otherwise tolerable,) I can also tell you that the whole world changes when you accept yourself. Whether your hair is red, brown, blue, or even fucking purple.

Poetry Bobbi Sinha-Morey

Central Point, Oregon, USA

It came to me again, a joy I once knew, so singular and refined in its hope; a song coming from our music room so awful even the mice covered their ears; and, before me, an upside-down teacup, a tiny white doily on top for two miniature dolls handmade by Parisians, a memory that always stayed the same over time pillowing my head for the dreams that lay ahead seeing miracles crystallize before my very eyes and my heart brightened by day, a life given me by the unseen hands of heaven.