bleach bautismo

I cut it, the long strips of curl shaped like zigzag scissors, dull blonde streaks like

caramel laced through the ends of my almost-but-not-quite-black hair. Surviving

months of swim pool chlorine and hundreds of Cross Country ponytails, I have clung

to this hair for over four years. I don’t know if it defines me, or if I define it. Curly,

definitely curly, although my first year at college has flattened and cooked my

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oceanic rulos into ripples in a lake. While she cuts she talks, this amiga latina with large

hips like a sofa, hair baptized by blonde dye, black wing tips lifting off from the corners

of her dark brown latina eyes. Washing over me, caressing me with the

gentle shhhhhh of Castellano: I understand and I don’t. Who am I to cut off the past?

Who am I not to? She asks what color the new blonde streaks will be: dulce de leche,

vanilla, musky smoke or cracked-leather blonde? I find myself pointing to the

platinum, shiny-as-a-new-vintage-record, don’t-look-it-might-blind-you blonde. Light

as gringa skin dipped in white chocolate, after the summer tan has rubbed off and we

all resemble Snow White a little. That is too light she says, but I will take this plunge,

this smell of bleach, this baptism of fire in Buenos Aires.