Angry Black Hair
By Autumn Risbrook
Let me just start off by saying thank you for loving my hair
I know it’s so fluffy and coily and beautiful
And I just needed to say that because I’m a little tired of having it tugged and pulled on by others who are not my mother because as you can see it is versatile and thick(pause)
I’m not upset at all…
Heck I’m pissed off
I’m mad! so mad that I’m about to carry a flip flop in my bag to break your hand in half
But imagine this as sympathetic so I can tell you why this is so pathetic
that you can even think to touch where my roots hide
I’m borderline about cry because I don’t know where you have been
Then u get upset when I say don’t touch
(Pause)
Don’t touch, because I’m built like this
Don’t touch, just because you ain’t hip like this
Don’t touch, because you need heat to achieve even half of what I have
And you know what stop taking all the hair products to force your edges
and you know what, stores make the products reduce in price
I’m SO tired of being nice
DONT TOUCH, here you go again making me uncomfortable ’cause I paid 100 dollars plus for these braids
I can go on for days and men don’t understand
Cause y’all don’t need much and don’t understand either (laugh) cause that’s another topic
And I can still be treated like an animal, or test subject and no one would have any remorse to show for it… so now u understand my concerns so please admire with your eyes and love my hair from a far
Autumn’s “Poem breakdown”: I wrote this poem because of a trend on social media about other people touching black girls’ hair without their permission. This has happened to me before and it was really frustrating so I decided to make a poem about it. Me writing this poem also came at the perfect time because it was for a school assignment.
Autumn Risbrook is a Junior at Richard Wright PCS.