Ode to Chinese Superstitions, Haircuts, and Being a Girl

Chinese superstition tells me it’s bad luck

         to get a haircut when I’m sick, and my hair

gets cut twice a year, because I let it grow,

         tying it into a ponytail, exposing my forehead,

looking like I’m the protagonist of an anime,

         which makes me think about my last name,

Chan, also known as the  Japanese honorific

         for someone endearing. Chan, like a friend

                                      or someone childlike. I’ve been told I sound

                             like a child when I pick up the phone, or maybe

                                      it’s my pure joy to hear from the ones I love.

                             And yes, voices are sexier than faces, so dial me,

                                      honey, let’s get a little wild tonight, as I pour

                             a glass of  bourbon and picture myself in anime—

                                      cartoon Chan starring in a slice-of-life show

                             about a girl group trying to make it, and you bet

I’d be the rambunctious one, the tomboy-

         rabble-rouser-ringleader on the drums—

the  trouble  with the exposed forehead, also

         known in East Asian culture as a symbol

of  aggression, because an exposed forehead

         puts everything out there—you’re telling

the world you’re ready for a takedown,

         and according to my father, good Chinese

                                      girls never show their foreheads, and I know

                             he wishes I were born in the Year of  the Rabbit,

                                      like my mother, the perfect woman with flawless

                             skin who never causes trouble with the boys, but

                                      no, I’m the Year of the Snake, and I always bring

                             the party, cause the trouble, or as my lover says,

                                      I’m sarcastic wit personified, and it’s boundless,

                             because I am Dorothy—pop embodied in a gingham

skirt with a puppy and a picnic basket

         filled with prosciutto and gouda and Prosecco,

but really, what is my fate? And my mother

         tells me the family fortune teller got me all

wrong, because there’s no way in hell

         I’d end up being a housewife with three

children and a breadwinner of a husband.

         But of course, the fortune teller got my brother’s

                                      fate right. It’s moments like this when I wonder

                             if I even matter because I’m a girl and not a boy.

                                      It’s moments like this when I think about my fate,

                             or how Chinese superstition tells me not to cut or wash

                                      my hair on Lunar New Year, so all my good fortune

                             won’t be snipped away. But really, what is fate?

                                      I tie my hair back and put on a short skirt, ready

                             to take over the world—forehead forever exposed.