freeform

National Poetry Month 2022

For the record, I do not have freeform locs. But I get them now in a way I have never understood them before. IYKYK.

Every so often

I find the parts again 

Recoiling when

My coils snap 

Refusing to be separated 

They became family

*

In the time between now

And when I last policed them 

*

Their pain lets me know

They imagine an entanglement 

I did not design for them 

*

I lay a barrier of oils between them

Jojoba, castor, carrying the drops of 

Eucalyptus, tea tree and rosemary

*

I hope they soothe 

The pain of separation I

*

Never understood f r e e f o r m

Locs before this journey:

Cultivated intersections

On my scalp

*

I police them

So that the unkind world 

Might resist policing me 

*

And I wonder 

Where in my body I long

To find the family I refuse to part with.