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Hair Holds
Mar. 21st, 2026 09:28 pmI am not sure when we first encountered the phrase "hair holds trauma". Maybe the first time we cut it short and it felt like much more was falling free at the clip of scissors and blade.
I remember that time at the sleepover. We wore it out for the first time, and I told my mum how I knew my friends would rect. I feel - or I felt - like a carnival attraction.
Our hair was always a point of discussion in our childhood, and I'm still not sure why. Because it was too long, too frizzy, too poofy, too different. We didn't know the term "microagression" until much older but we knew how it felt. To be touched, to have comments made, to have questions asked. We knew our hair was different.
I remember that time at the sleepover. We wore it out for the first time, and I told my mum how I knew my friends would rect. I feel - or I felt - like a carnival attraction.
It stretches long and dark under water and shrinks back from air, as if afraid or protecting itself. It tangles and turns and forms into shapes unknown by suburban Australia. It needs expensive creams and gels to keep it in the place that looks best to the world (the closest it can get to straight). It bucks and riles and is labelled BEAST.
A schoolyard. So called friends. Beast. They called me beast. The day I wore my hair out to school for the first time. And they never apologised. I'll show them beast. I'll show them monkey. I'll show them what they want to see.
Our hair holds the undeniable weight of many before, the Black community all over the world. Our hair holds the pain and the wishes to be different, to be normal, to not be saddled with something that will bring undeniable strife.
Hair like yours helped slaves escape, you know. They braided the paths into their skulls using codes and symbols. Now, they braid guitars and song, and make awards to Black excellence.
Our Black hair is a path to community. When another Black person compliments us, I feel an undeniable rush of pride and joy. It is something special be seen and known as beautiful, when so many sought to deny us that. We are not brave, we are not special, we simply are. And for some reason we know only they can see that.
Our Black hair is a vessel for trust. To allow another to brush, wash, or touch your hair has become a marker of our deepest affections. Many strangers will touch without care, so our consensual participation is another thing entirely. It is inviting you into a personal ritual, with the trust you will respect it's reverence. If a Wanderstar allows you to care for their hair, consider yourself a lucky one.
Lying with my head in your lap, as you slowly work the knots out. I feel your fingers running along each strand as a bow to a violin, meticulous with your effort. You cry to me, lover, that you cannot help me in the ways they do. I tell you that your help is perfect, no matter how many bodies are involved.
Our Black hair is a container of selfhood Afro, plait, frohawk - all define eras for us as Wanderstars. We see the markers of change through the roots and the cuts, the products and the pain. But by changing it, nothing is lost. It is simply giving rise for a new form to grow in its place.
We actively seek to re-define our hair as a holder of safety more than trauma. We want it to be a place we can come back to each week in the shower with our head under the tap, letting the water run over as if washing free the rot of the world.
A place that is just for us, porcelain lined, watching the soap swirl down the drain.
A place that is just for us, porcelain lined, watching the soap swirl down the drain.
