By Heather Johnson
A middle-aged woman, orange hair tightly
permed, bones jostling within a threadbare
corset, manhandles the wide-eyed Native
doll—hands pet imitation-buckskin fringe
dress, sewn with plastic beads. A smile parts
lips like the sheer cut of a razor
as she rubs her thumbs over the doll’s sprayed-on
brown skin—as his fingers explored
and claimed the landscape of my body—Your skin looks
great against mine: brown on white. But the doll’s
skin is flawless, no evidence of cutting
scars at the wrists, thighs, shoulder, or at the hollow
between the breasts—he mapped the shimmery
ridges of those scars, too. The doll’s hand-painted
eyes are brown with black flecks, glaze
and shade like mine. The woman clutches
the doll against slack chest, hand cupping
the back of her head—synthetic
black hair parted down the middle, tied
in pigtails, with a headband snug
over her brow, restraining memory. He wrapped
my hair around his fist, pulled until my back
bowed, until he came hard—Can you grow it longer?
I amputated my hair, dyed it punk-red, and the color
bled out slowly in the shower.
Heather Johnson is an androgynous Diné writer from the Navajo Nation, currently residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is at work on a novel, a memoir, and poetry. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming in, Prairie Schooner, the Sigma Tau Delta’s The Triangle, Anti-Heroin Chic, and HeArt (Human Equity Through Art). Her poetry will be anthologized in the Dine Reader: A Guide to Navajo Poetics. Previously, she was a blog contributor to Blue Mesa Review. Her subjects are surviving personal and historical traumas, the experiences of marginalized identities, the complexities of mental health and well-being, and the landscape as sacred. She is also a founding member of the Trigger Warning Writers Group.
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