HER HAIR

Her hair is all about volume. Considering how little time she spends in front of the mirror in general, her morning coiffure takes a century. She sits at the vanity with a straight, solemn back. She will not leave her post until she can accept her hair.

She is wearing violet nightgown with an uneven sheen. She is barefoot, four feet away from her slippers tossed under the nightstand. The color is such a black that it’s sometimes blue. Such a black that the occasional white of her scalp is a Sahara dessert and it pains her. It is kept short and curly like that year-round, an illusion of density in mind. The hairs are thin, but in such compact coils they are resilient.

She puts pink curlers in it and applies heat with a dryer that she used to put on High all the time. She runs an expensive comb through first, expensive because it has special coating that enables it to glide through her hair without taking any with it. She must inspect the comb after each use for any damage, because it no longer really hurts when she loses some. She frequently wonders if she needs a more expensive dryer as well.

When the curlers are removed after a good 30 minutes, usually after breakfast, the hair finally springs into its day-long bouncy life. She sees herself in the mirror and tosses her hair a little bit with her open hands, testing the fluff. It’s light as air, as so much of it is air; a dark cotton candy that tastes too much like going away.