In Short – Issue 3 (Spring 2025)

May 31, 2025

“Friday Flowers” by Alexis E Jacobson

My Hair Was Never Mine to Cut

By Vani Aadhya

My mother treated my hair like a boon—something gifted by the gods to tie us together. Perhaps because in a world where she never expected to be a mother, I arrived—seven years of waiting wrapped up in tiny hands, my cries filling the spaces she thought would always remain empty. And so, she held even the dead parts of me close.

Every weekend, she would pull open the curtains, letting dust drift in golden sunlight, as if stirring the air awake. At the center of it all stood an old wooden stool, one that had come from her hometown in India when she moved two thousand kilometers away in the 90s. She found comfort in what once was, often relaying her own memories with the stool and always retelling its journey—two months at sea before finally reaching her.

On that stool rested a bowl of warm oil—six ingredients simmered into amber, sometimes seven if an amla lay forgotten in the fridge—filling the room with the heady scent of jasmine, so strong even the dust swayed in the soft star’s fragrance. I would sit cross-legged on a thick wool carpet, the rough fibers pressing into my skin, while the television played reruns of sitcoms she wasn’t interested in. Maybe because they only reminded her of how far she was from home.

My mother perched on the edge of the bed, where a cotton sheet—adorned with block-printed elephants, their ornate forms softened by years of washing—was always tucked in just right. She would loosen my braid, unweaving the strands with careful hands, as though loosening the stitches of an heirloom. My hair was never mine to cut. She never said so outright, but it was understood. A trim was permissible, a slight shaping perhaps, but never more. Maybe because to cut it would be to sever something neither of us could name.

The comb, its plastic teeth fine and sharp, slipped through my hair, coaxing out the tangles. Then her fingers—soft, knowing—dipped into the warm oil, curling as they gathered just enough. The moment it touched my scalp, my body surrendered. My neck relaxed, my head falling into her hands as though it had always belonged there. She worked in silence, parting, smoothing, braiding—threading something invisible between us, something only she could see. And in that moment, I was hers again.

I was sixteen when I cut my hair. The strands fell to the floor in quiet loops, like a thread snipped mid-stream. The scent of jasmine still lingered, but the weight was gone. I hadn’t asked my mother. I was old enough to—a declaration of independence that told my mother she’d lost. I hadn’t realized what I’d taken from her. It wasn’t just hair; it was years of those moments she’d sewn together like white garlands.

Now I understand: My long hair had been her way of holding on, of stitching time in an effort to slow it—holding sand in an hourglass to turn forever, before it slipped through her fingers. Now I understand, as I see more grays than blacks in her hair and her pace just a little slower, how quickly time flies by.

And sometimes, a mother cries. Not for the hair—the dead parts of her daughter—but for the way her hands reach out, aching to cradle her child again, only to find air.  

Vani Aadhya (she/her) is a 1998 born, writing through the mystical in and around us. Her days are spent in Jaipur, India, sipping on historical aesthetics and admiring a cup of chai. You can find her on the bird app @vaniadyawrites or on her balcony, silently staring at the moon.