Poem - Salon, A Call to Conformity and Loss of Self

A poem free written in five minutes in a writing group, sparked from a bad photocopy of a photo of a woman getting her hair done in a 1920s salon, her head hooked up to some electric monstrosity, her face as if joy would never be possible again.  It wasn't this picture but it was the same manner of heated hair curler.

I'd encourage you, should you wish, to do everything that's the opposite of every line.  Be in rebellion.  But if you like exuberance in your hair then go ahead and be the woman in the picture.

Or as the badge I was given yesterday while writing nonconformist words on a street front window in Gateshead town centre says, be a dissident.

Salon

Boredom, brokenness,

Painful self disgust.

A silent, submissive

Bows to a belief of

Inadequacy, ugliness.

Sunken in sin, original,

Inescapable, a tainted twisted

Image of a hateful curse.

Put on a show.  Be the clown.

Mask yourself to acceptability,

To social conformity.

To a full-page colour spread

Displaying all your flaws

In the body of an airbrushed model.

Never rebel.  Never exult.

Don’t be a problem.

Be just like them, fake your smile.

Fake your life.  Fake your heart,

Die inside daily.

For Christ.  For capitalism.

For acceptance.  For the patriarchy.

For the convenience of monochrome.

Make waves only in greeting.

Even your hair is wrong.

So change it and live alone

Though surrounded by crowds.