Big hair, Cocoa Butter.

My dad’s car always smell like ashy cigarettes and doublemint gum.

Green Jetta Volkswagen, used car, apart of home.

I remember sitting behind my dad lip syncing to the song we’d hear

on the radio and doing some hand slangs if I didn’t know the words.

My dad’s car always meant something to me though. It’s a used car,

but you’d get so used to seeing it that it actually feels like it’s apart

of you.

Cococa butter and cigarettes do not go together unless you plan on

smelling like it. My dad would flick the ash out the window and a

piece of that ash would always find a way landing on my hair.

"Move your big head out the way, I cant see", my dad would tell me as

he looked in the rear mirror. It’s not my head, it’s my hair. My big

hair.

People in class wouldn’t like me because they couldn’t see the board.

People in class would like me because they said I smell like sweets.

“It’s Cocoa Butter, Vanessa”, I’d say.

I always had a lump in my throat if I see a green jetta Volkswagen in

the school’s parking lot. I could already sensed my dad’s

disappointment in mid-air.

I hated that Volkswagen, always giving me goosebumps whenever I’d

see it waiting for me in the school’s parking lot.

Sitting in my dad’s car, nodding to the serious toned lecture from his

brain and out of his mouth into my hears, just nodding and quietly

saying “yeah”.

In that Green Jetta Volkswagen, the memories I carry the most are

lectures and lectures and lectures and food.

I look at my window on the passenger’s side avoiding the cigarette

smoke, watching other cars go by.

Awkward slience filled the car as he pops a doublemint gum and I

stick out my left hand asking for one.

I’d notice the dry skin between my thumb and finger. Cocoa butter

lotion smooth it away leaving the car smelling like cigarettes and

doublemint gum, and my big hair in the way.