The Girl With Stars In Her Hair

I am the girl with stars in her hair. But before I was a girl, I was a child. A child brimming with possibility and potential. I basked daily in the California sun. I played with my Barbies reverently. I colored two pictures at a time with both my hands. I ran around the house naked before a bath and laughed carelessly into my mom’s blond dreadlocks. The world was mine. Everything was pure and tinted pink. The color of unfiltered and unadulterated innocence. But a dark cloud descended on my rose-colored world. And everything changed.

He was Mommy’s new boyfriend. A tall, light-skinned man with toned muscles and black waves in his hair. He had an air of superiority about him. A smile that charmed every woman he met and eyes that ate the sunlight and reflected it back tenfold. To me he was like a Russian nesting doll. A facade that could be peeled away with enough effort. And at his core, was a thief. Behind a closed door—when Mommy wasn’t home—he stole my stars from me. Only a handful that time, but he would have them all soon. He said to once that I couldn’t write with both my hands. Never said why, just that I couldn’t do it anymore.

“Choose,” he said. I chose right. Two handfuls of stars. One weekend I wanted to play dress-up. I put on a swimsuit bikini top that had no bottoms and paired it with my shortest pair of shorts. I pulled on a pair of angel wings and my mom’s wedge-heeled grey boots. I posed in the front of the mirror in the living room. I was feeling myself. Until he showed up. He wore no shirt and had his jeans belted a little below his hips. He pointed a finger at my stomach and said, “It’s not supposed to look like that.” He then pointed to his toned abs and proceeded to tell me that my stomach was supposed to look like his. I was only seven. He had all my stars now. I never played dress-up in front of him again.

Then one day Mommy found out. She threw him out and in an instant, he was gone. I didn’t miss him, but I wanted my stars back. My hair had become a dull black that lacked the sparkle I was used to. But before I could try to reclaim my stars, I was a child no longer. I had sprouted boobs, was wearing a bra and had two new sisters. We stayed in California for a year longer before it was time to leave. The past was ever present, and a mountain of negative energy had practically swallowed us whole. We left for Georgia and never looked back.

We stayed with my uncle for a few months. I met a cousin I didn’t know I had and realized I didn’t like him that much. We found a place of our own after a while and moved again. It was a nice house, in a subdivision with streets labeled ‘Leprechaun Ln’ and ‘Hobbit Glen’. It was magical. The perfect fit. Mommy swapped her dreads for a blonde buzz cut. Meanwhile my sister’s started growing dreads of their own. The world was mine once more. Rather than a soft pink, it was the faintest shade of blue. I saw more than I had before, but only as much as I needed to. I found my stars again. And my hair shone once more. I was content. I was happy. But it was not meant to last.

I was in seventh grade when it happened. My mom had just finished doing my hair and sent me to the hallway closest to put everything back. I came back and sat in front of her. She still had to tie down my hair. Once she did so and I turned to face her, her face had become somber. She had gotten a call from my Auntie Doressa earlier that day. Daddy had died. I hugged my mom slowly, and all I could say was, “How?” He had HIV—which I had known already—and it was pneumonia that had taken him. The doctors thought he was getting better, but instead his heart had stopped beating. I held onto my mom in a vicious hug. I held onto her for dear life because I didn’t know what else to hold onto.

He had just been here. He had just been here. And now he was gone. I always thought I would have more time. I would build a better relationship with him once I was an adult. We would drink coffee together. He would walk me down the aisle one day. He would become a grandpa to my children. And now all of that was gone. I cried that night. I stayed home the next day. I tried to act tough at school, but I broke down in the bathroom two days later. I just couldn’t believe it. He was gone. And with his spirit went my stars.

After that came a grand flurry of mistakes. Otherwise known as my Great Meteor Shower. And I wish I could say It was because of my dad. I wish I it was that simple. But that would be too easy an excuse for such deplorable behavior. But the truth is: I knew what I was doing. I knew it was wrong. And I kept. On. Doing it. My hair became filled with a black hole that looked on into nothingness. It was dangerous. And I didn’t care.

In eighth grade, I transformed. Were it not for the uniform policy, I would have started wearing a black leather jacket. Or a ripped jean jacket. It was that bad. I had become a supernova. I was a renegade solar flare that burned anything in its path. I kissed girls. I flirted with boys—online and offline. I cursed like a sailor. I got my first failing grade. I wore my hair in my eye and black chokers decorated my neck. When I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t tell who was looking back at me. But that was okay. I didn’t want to be myself anymore.

It was this first of many mistakes to come that started my slow descent into darkness. The hole in my hair was swallowing me whole. My mom fished me out every so often. And each time she had to do so, she was furious. She went from a peaceful celestial being to a raging star storm overnight. The house shook with the force of her anger. But I was numb to it all. For whilst she talked, I could only think of the darkness. How beautiful it had been. How welcoming it had been to me. Offering me warmth that I thought I needed.

Come with us, it said to me.

We love you here, we want you here, it whispered to me.

My eyes slipped closed as I let envelop me. Stay here with us. Stay a while, won’t you?

And I did stay. For three long years, it was my home. I gave new meaning to the phrase “Doing the wrong thing never felt so right.” Every time I was caught, I was chastised and made to feel bad. And I promised that I would never do it again and that it was a mistake and that I was so sorry. I was sorry. I was changed. But it was no mistake by then. Though the crime changed over the years, it was a choice. My hair was no longer a black void. There were no stars. No flares. No nothing. It was me and me alone that did these things. My hair was empty as I was.

Until one day a year ago, when I looked in the mirror. I had just been crying. A group of girls I thought were my friends had just informed me that I was fake and that they hate me. I had received a letter from two of them in my previous class.

One wrote: Dude, I am gonna keep this short and simple, like ripping off a BandAid. I don’t want you in my 11th grade year, or my 12th grade year or ever again. You’re lost my trust, and along with that my friendship. I gave you time to apologize them, but honestly it feels like you lied to me, to my face. My god ☹If you wanted to keep playing the silent game you should have just told me. We could have been cool, but you destroyed it yet again. Enjoy your life man, and never talk to me, or my friends who care about my feelings again. It’s embarrassing but oh well. I hate writing letters and I officially hate you. Don’t bother looking in my direction. You officially ruined my 10th grade year.

Penned in sparkly blue metallic ink and accompanied by two pictures. They were both doodles from her wishing me a happy summer. It was the equivalent of someone writing a suicide note in different colored crayons. But there was a back.

The other side read as such: I honest to God do not know where to start. I’m doing the same. I can’t have someone who hurts people, humiliates them, and ruins everything for someone and then expects an apology. I knew after the incident in freshman year this was going to happen again. And it did. I also am removing myself from the situation because I’m not about to put myself through it again. Find someone who plays the same fake friend game as you do. As for mem I’m gonna go spend the next 2 years with people who are mature and real with me.

She had signed her name at the bottom. I collected myself and walked to my next class calmly. But by the time I got through the doors, I was a mess. I cried so hard that day that the red in my eyes nearly reached my irises. I didn’t recognize the girl staring back at me in the mirror. But this time, I felt like I should have. At my lowest most vulnerable moment, I needed a piece of familiarity. But I had no idea who this girl was. She looked weak. She looked pathetic. And she looked terrible.

It was at that moment that I realized I hadn’t been myself. For years I hadn’t been me. I had become what everyone else wanted me to be. I wanted my old self back. I wanted to be the version of myself that jammed out to obscure music in her room at 3 am when she was supposed to be asleep. I wanted to be the girl that went into mile long rants about anime without taking a single breath. I wanted to be the me that had an unhealthy obsession with cats and loved Japan with an ungodly passion. My hair was filled again. Not with stars. Not with super novas. But instead, with possibility. I could be whatever and whoever I wanted to be. And this time for sure. I wanted to be Tribeca again. And so, that is who I became.

I became myself.