Crumbled Tissue

There were days you cried about the pain of waking up hours before sunrise,

so your mother could braid through your frizzy curls,

parting them tightly till you felt your scalp torn apart,

combing out the residual products from the day before.

 

The sprays, the gels, and the creams,

while I stood in my shower, pondering

over the distinction between shampoo and conditioner.

 

The long silver bottle, the rectangular clear can, and the baby blue cream,

you read through the ingredients to pass time, while your mother pulled out strands of fallen hair.

Comparing the ingredient lists of different products was your fun little matching game,

and glycerin would be the first one you’d notice.

 

I didn’t know how to comfort you, or how to stop those trickling tears.

So I lend you a shoulder in the back of the bus.

 

You cried without a sound, pinching your nail-folds until they were swollen and bleeding,

I’d press my hands over yours, until I felt your fingers loosening,

leaving my palms with a few scarlet smudges.

You’d squeeze the tissue I hand you into wet scraps,

scattering them across the umber cushion.

 

We’d try to clean them out afterwards,

but there was always a few white pieces stuck between the cracks

 

You didn’t understand why you were always addressed as a black girl,

never just a girl, the hideous subtexts were all still concealed.

 

We gathered around Ms. Faustina during story-time,

you’d sit behind Elijah, back hunched, hoping

to hide your face behind his relatively broad shoulders.

As the story went on, you’d unknowingly lean forward,

the tail of your coiled braid brushing pass Elijah’s nape.

He flinched away uncomfortably. You murmured your apologies over and over,

while you wiggled your fingers under the fleece carpet,

pinching out threads from underneath.

 

It was you who told me that Santa Claus isn’t real.

That December, I went to bed early,

without leaving cookies and warm milk on the dining table.

 

After Christmas break, I sat on the bus while the other kids gossiped about seeing Santa Claus.

I tittered at their foolishness in falling for such ridicule, thinking of our shared secret,

as if I myself didn’t just break through the foolishness a week ago.

 

Looking out of the windows as the bus decelerated by your stop,

I leaned my burning cheeks onto the cold glass, intuitively waiting

for you to run towards the bus stop with strands of hair swinging

in sync with the tempo of your steps.

Little did I know that these detailed memories

would become a catchy chorus I hum under my breath in every crowded room

 

Every year when Christmas comes around,

I’d look out the window as my bus passes by the street that you once walked,

I’d push my face back onto the piercing glass and stare out until the window fogged up completely,

leaving me with a mosaic view of your neighborhood.

 

The gates you half embraced every time you pushed open, the fences

you hopped over, the concrete square the wheels of your skateboard rolled across,

the orange tree that shielded us from the scorching beams of July, witnessing

every cartwheel we landed. And the abandoned wooden fort,

with its walls exhibiting our undecipherable doodles and silly poems with cheesy rhymes.

 

I remember how crammed the school bus once was at this time of the year, with our

puffer coats rustling against each other, and the metal sliders tapping against the zipper teeth.

It’s quite spacious now. Me and my teal green backpack, each having our own seats.

I read my paperback, leaving the people around me unnoticed.

 

Did they ever send you a proper apology?

For their words that left you hurting in unimaginable ways,

for the time you wasted staring into the mirror doubting,

for the crumbled tissue and the bleeding nail-folds.

 

For you,

I’d pile my lunch bag on my thighs, my backpack between my feet,

squeeze my puffer a little tighter,

waiting for a whiff of the zesty scent of your citrus hair softener,

waiting for you to bump your elbow into mine.

 

Author: Mia Huang

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