Forgive Me Martha
by Jay McKenzie
Forgive me Martha, for I have not trimmed. It has been six months since my last haircut and I have used the GHDs with abandon. I home dyed and forgot to Vaseline my hairline. I went on holiday and let sunscreen grease and the bitter tang of chlorine strip my hair of moisture. I squeezed raw lemon juice on my head and baked under a relentless sun, I singed the ends with a drunken cigarette. I let a postman from Ross-on-Wye tangle his fat sausage-fingers in it, didn’t cry too hard when he pulled some out. Oh Martha, forgive me for the way I took to the split ends, pinching the forked tails with bitten fingernails and split them apart like conjoined twin surgery. Back when I stopped getting out of bed, I didn’t brush or wash it for a month. When I eventually bathed, thick spider legs of hair lay inert across the greying surface of the water and I wondered how red my blood would look mixing with the soap scum. Since my boyfriend left, I have yanked no fewer than seven fat greasy locks from random spots on my head to send him in the post and all I got in return was a community police officer warning. O my God, I am heartily sorry for having wrecked my halo, and I detest all my transgressions because I dread the loss of the thing I hide behind to give the appearance of beauty and the pains of potentially having to show the world my bare and unhidable face. I have offended you, my stylist, my listener, whose work is art, whose ears are always open. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy healing hands, to do penance, and to amend my ways. Amend.
About the Author
bio and picture coming soon
