“Hair Ties” by Josie Baranski, X: poetry

Hair Ties

- Josie Baranski, X: poem Mother and I used to sit on the cold bathroom floor Rubber bands scattered about like rose petals on Valentine’s Day

I crouched on a tiny stool, Mother looping and twirling my hair into braids, fastening them with a painful pull and pinch of a tight ponytail

But when her playing was over, she shook my small skull, and the blond locks spilled like waves across the tiled bathroom floor, glittering with hairspray and oil Her icy fingers ran down my scalp sending shivers along my spine and I loving the way it felt would ask her to pull and pinch again just so I could feel the sharpness of her nails parting the strands