issue two / celestial
The Harmony of My Hair Starting
Great and Ending Grand
Joshua Merchant
The Harmony of My Hair Starting
there’s a memory that starts with a curl pattern
in one corner crossing into the other; strikes Alberta’s
nerves when she asks with all the seriousness of a fly
dying on her stern pressed brow, “why would you color
a fire truck blue?” and I guess that’s why I like beanies
and hard to medium bristles, just add water to activate
the nature of a drop of stress that refuses to show any
other way – the desperate need to color inside the lines
but only in a way that makes sense to me, the fire // that locked
the tips of my mother’s braids after hours on a saturday //
the key being her kids and their daydreams on 106 & Park //
the glock being the record skip of oil slipped from the first
natural I ever sprouted on the monkey bars // all the way back
to the ricochet of my Grand’s bangs. slick on one side. beaded
on the other. that’s the orchestra of my hairline. a tapper blooms
an inside joke from juices and berries. and I love that scene –
the cross-stitching of Black on every fingertip greasing me down the middle.
in one corner crossing into the other; strikes Alberta’s
nerves when she asks with all the seriousness of a fly
dying on her stern pressed brow, “why would you color
a fire truck blue?” and I guess that’s why I like beanies
and hard to medium bristles, just add water to activate
the nature of a drop of stress that refuses to show any
other way – the desperate need to color inside the lines
but only in a way that makes sense to me, the fire // that locked
the tips of my mother’s braids after hours on a saturday //
the key being her kids and their daydreams on 106 & Park //
the glock being the record skip of oil slipped from the first
natural I ever sprouted on the monkey bars // all the way back
to the ricochet of my Grand’s bangs. slick on one side. beaded
on the other. that’s the orchestra of my hairline. a tapper blooms
an inside joke from juices and berries. and I love that scene –
the cross-stitching of Black on every fingertip greasing me down the middle.
Joshua Merchant (they / them) is a Black Queer native of East Oakland, CA exploring what it means to be human as an intersectional being. What they’ve been exploring as of late has been in the realm of loving and what it means while processing trauma. They feel as though it has become too common to deny access to our true source of power as a people for the sake of feeling powerful. However, they’ve come to recognize with harsh lessons and divine grace that without showing up for ourselves and each other, everything else is null and void. Innately, everything Merchant writes is a love letter to their people. Because of this they've had the honor to witness their work being held, understood, published or forthcoming in 580Split, Anvil Tongue Books, Spiritus Mundi Review, Roi Faineant Literary Press and elsewhere.