Hair It Is By Dr. Gina Rizzo
Everyone is valuable and beautiful as they are.

Hair has a mind of its own.
How it is born is how it’s grown.
Hair is all the same.
We are all working with how it came.

Perms to straighten and to curl.
Irons flatten and irons swirl.
Shaved, bleached, and braided.
Pluck it, shape it, trim it, and fade it.

It grows when and where it dares,
 with no regard for fashion’s cares.
Hair is everywhere.
Way down to here and all up in there.

Fry it, cut it, and hide it.
Burn it, break it, and then dye it.
Brushed, picked, combed, dreaded,
washed, dried, threaded, and some silk bedded.

Never there or was it lost?
Some even pay a surgeon’s cost.
Stressed if hair’s astray?
But if my hair’s relaxed, I’m okay?!

Wrap it, weave it, and feed it.
Extend and bend, you believe it.
Hair food and stylists.
For perfect hair we do violence. 

Have too much or too little?
Is anyone in the middle?
Magic rubs? Okay!
Give me all of them without delay.

My hair floats limp as it breaks.
Now here it sits in crispy flakes.
If paid for hair crimes
I would be rich not paying hair fines.

Toasted, sprayed, flayed, and flambéed.
Poor hair, we’re lucky if it stayed.
Smoking from my head!
You smell that burning? My hair is dead!

Rollers hot, spiked, sponged, and steamed,
since the Egyptians so it seemed.
Greased, glossed, with shimmer,
for perfection my hair must glimmer.

So much hair time and money,
all for wonderful hair honey!
Whose business? Not mine.
If up to me, natural’s always fine.

Hair is hair. It’s how it is.
Hair is beautiful it’s no quiz.
Whatever is there
what is best is to just love our hair.

Gina is a lifelong social justice activist who believes in creating a better world through better educating with the arts. She is an agented author and illustrator of children’s picture books that embrace diversity and an award-winning children’s poet living in Vallejo. After receiving her B.A. in art with a minor in humanities from San Francisco State University she earned two teaching credential and a Master of Art in Teaching from Chapman University. She taught for fifteen years and currently is a PhD candidate researching why the arts exist at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She has been published in a variety of periodicals and has four self-published children’s books under the pen names Regina Sparrow and Dr. Gina Rizzo. There are three other of her projects in the professional book publishing process. Her newest venture is designing inspirational educational posters and other educational treasures. Gina is available to illustrate, paint murals, do public readings, teach art classes, and do consulting on organization, education, and publishing. Better Learning = Better World. Visit www.DrGinaRizzo.com or email Gina@DrGinaRizzo.com