Love Poem: Locks
Bella Cardenas Avatar
Written by: Bella Cardenas

Locks

I’m chopping it off
All of it, you hear?
This long black hair
Down past the middle of my waist
Sleek and shiny with 
Past defects and 
Too many wasted bottles of shampoo
Trying to cleanse myself of my mistakes

It doesn’t work
It doesn’t work

Split ends that rise 
To corrupt my roots
I tame with vials of conditioner
To make the pain easier to run through your fingers

He loves to run
His fingers
Through my 
Softest pain
To twist it around his fingers

Easier to manipulate

He’s using it against me

I can’t lug my history with me
Everywhere I go
Brushing it 
Trying to comb out the exact instant
Of my errors
I relive it everyday
Between each strand of ebony
That entwines it’s soft whisper
Of my grief

I mess up so much
 
I can’t sustain this ideal of beauty
Brushing up against my skin
Soaking into my pores
Filling me up with regret and such a wasted
Desire 
To please
Him

All I ever wanted  was to be beautiful for you, baby

But  I’m chopping it off
All of it, you hear?
This long black hair
Down to here
Letting go of raven haunts, lost loves
Million dollar tears 

Each strand of ebony 
That is lacerated
That cascades to the floor
Gives me liberty
And I let go
because

All I ever wanted was to be beautiful for you, baby