“Do you have good or bad hair?”
I get this question all the time from everyone around me.
But I’ve never mustered up the courage to reply.
So I tell them: “Yeah, my hair isn’t straight.”
Despite my family’s efforts to convince me that I had nice hair as a baby,
All of the kids at school were skilled in the art of bullying.

I started wearing the hijab when I was in 5th grade so no one would make fun of my hair.
I wore it despite not liking the hijab.
I used to straighten my hair and use all kinds of chemicals.

When I got older and started college, I started ironing it a lot so it’d feel soft.
To the point that it was almost heat damaged.
I tried to validate myself, saying “My hair is curly. It’s you whose brains aren’t developed yet.”
But the truth is that I don’t even know how to make it curly; it just gets curly as soon as I step out of the shower.
After an hour, it gets poofy, and truthfully, I don’t take care of it.
I won’t lie to you: I’m 23 years old and even now, I still care about what people say about my hair.
I want to take off the hijab and be free, but I can’t because I’m afraid of what they’ll say.