The Hairdresser’s Daughter

My mother
Silver hearts in her ears
An apron over her black blouse
Shimmery pink gloss on her lips
With light blonde hair in waves behind her

Holds another’s life in her hands
Bleach on to long and it will never be the same
Flat iron too hot you’ll singe it right of
Cut it to short and that’s months of growth ahead
There are perils to a client and plenty of pitfalls for her hairdresser
Knowing all this I watch in awe
At the easy trust her client bestows
And the gracious elegance my mother receives it with
She is confident she’ll be happy with her hair
And my mother is confident she will make her happy
I am relieved that my job is much simpler.

Face scrubbed clean
Velcro sandals in place
Beaded play bracelet on my wrist
Hair down along my back held in place by butterfly berets
it swishes when I step

I am the sweeper
Although I have many duties as the hairdressers daughter
Fetching clean towels
Holding the mirror steady
My favorite job is getting to sweep
Dark hair recently shorn of, litters the floor
Broom in hand I shape it into a neat pile
Careful not to miss a single strand
This job is important, though discarded every piece carries weight
Each took months to grow and where painstakingly cut
Take it from the hairdressers daughter

Before we even step foot into work we prepare
My mom stands in front of the mirror making a perfect face even more perfect
I thoughtfully weigh out flower or butterfly clip
Butterfly
They have sparkles
And mom says we should try and look our best

At the salon the other stylists
Ashley
High ponytail
Christina
Black short bob
Gwen
Messy bun with a claw clip
Smile when they see me as they set up there stations
Waiting for the beautiful people to come in
Ready to make them even more so

I study the clients carefully as they walk in
What starts out as a half hearted braid shuffling in might leave as a blowout strutting out
Pin straight to a perm
The person entirely changed along with it
But it’s not just how they leave, but what takes place in the chair
That matters

Client #1 is indecisive
She has had practically every color and look under the sun yet still hasn’t found one to wear
longer than a month
Client #2 is old
She is going gray so she’s decided to dye it all silver. That’s aging in style she says
Client #3 is nervous
She has prom coming up and she wants to be perfect
Client #4 is ready
She is going for a promotion at work. She wants to look like a big business lady so maybe she’ll
feel like one

I blame it on the mirrors
You can’t stare at yourself like that for hours and not get to thinking
You can do that at a salon
think
You can count on the hairdresser to talk with if you need it
The hair sweeper to keep things clean
And that when you leave even if nothings been figured out
If nothing’s changed but the hair on your head
You’ll feel a little bit better

Ours Now

We saved the bedroom for last
We said it was because it was in the back of the house
Made sense to start in the entry
The living room
The kitchen
The bathroom
Everything but the bedroom
Anything but the bedroom
Until now
Because even now
With the rest of the house in dumpsters

I open the door
See the bed
And stop
Faded floral sheets tucked in
The white comforter smoothed out
It’s made, The beds made
That’s what’s different
It was never made before
Because she was always in it
I still expect her to be in it
It’s still expected that we
Shuffle in single file avoiding the cups of cold tea
Bunched up tissues balanced on stacks of magazines
Pushing aside odds and ends
To make a path, to the bed
Where she waits with her hand outstretched, spotted and knobbled
Her shock of white hair spread across the pillow like a halo
Drooping eyelids struggling to stay open
I can’t call her fragile
You can’t struggle for that long and be
fragile

She was buried two towns over
But that room
With the vanity now dusty
Crammed full of costume jewelry and expired cosmetics
Overflowing closet with now moth eaten wardrobe
Was her real mausoleum
It was sacrilege to even enter
But we did
We entered with trash bags and gloves and spray cleaner
All because a piece of paper said it was
Ours now
This house that I can only remember a handful of visits too

That the smell of cats and dust and age drove us out off
Was ours
Because it’s what she would have wanted

My little sister said it was haunted
I said it wasn’t
She hadn’t died here after all
She died in a bright white room that smelled of disinfectant
She died surrounded by family
That she couldn’t recognize anymore
But we cried for her anyways
I cried so hard she called me over
Voice slow and drifting
Why are you crying little girl
And that made me sob louder

When we sorted
The trash pile tripling the keep
We didn’t talk
Not when someone stared of in the distance
Or sat and cried
Because if we stopped every time
To feel the cool jade beads of a bracelet she always wore
Marvel at the birthday card we made and for some reason she still kept
Flip through the worn pages of the bible she preached
If we stopped every time the memories were too much to bear
We would never finish.

So we
Peeled away yellowed wallpaper
Pried of sunflower tiles
Pulled up the green carpet
A home turned into a gutted out house
And it was done
Except it wasn’t
Because now we would live here
No point having it sit there empty,
Right

I don’t know when it became our house
It wasn’t when we painted the walls grey
Or put in grey floors
And moved into our grey little house
I wondered if we would always be imposters
Who dared put food in the fridge
And their coats in the closet
Squatters
In a house waiting for its real owner to come back
Home

Lili Lang is 16 years old and lives in California, USA. Lili is a sugar addict who loves all things sweet and spends her time reading and plotting literary world domination. She has her head perpetually in the clouds and is a cat person at heart, or at least she would be if she wasn’t allergic. Lili is a CSSSA Alum and Writegirl Mentee. She is an LA Youth Poet Ambassador.  Her work has been previously published in Under The Madness Magazine and Girls Right The World.