Over the years she stopped combing everything. It started when they
told her she couldn’t go to Daughters Of The American Revolution
luncheon. She just stopped trying to comb through their hate to find
kernels of respect. She let the tendrils of their fuming hate cool
down in her calm aura and coalesce into greasy residues of emotion.
She smiled politely and walked away. Later, when college boys realized
what she had known all along, that her beauty was too much for them,
she found her self too tired to comb through the river of boys for
gold. She let their love burn around her and when they were left with
nothing but the memory of smoke she rose from the ash like a phoenix.
Burning brighter than the sun her soul melted the ivory handled picks
and short circuited hot combs until there was nothing left in the
world strong enough to touch her but her hands. And so, faced with a
word that couldn’t contain her, that couldn’t touch her, she let the
bald headed world dread her hair