Growing my hair down below my knees
Growing my hair down below my knees...
stimulated courtesy follicles,
where Coconut, Olive, Grapeseed,
Jojoba, Amla and Vitamin E oils
allowed, enabled,
and provided head start
germinating peach fuzz into brown strands
after Flaxseeds, Pumpkin seeds and Fenugreek
being sprinkled on my scalp
yielded a bumper crop of hirsute weeds
occasionally tripping me up
analogous to hallucinogen
causing a public health hazard
warranting, necessitating, and goading me
to give shout out for stylist
to tender mine lovely brunette locks,
which might be repurposed into a wig
for patients undergoing chemotherapy,
or afflicted with alopecia,
(the partial or complete absence
of hair from areas of the body
where it normally grows; baldness).
As a knobby kneed, puny,
scrawny, wimpy kid whose,
(back in the nineteen sixties),
his parents decreed their singular
(painfully shy dorky, geeky and nerdy)
old school boy who sported a buzz cut,
which found him reacting and responding
(in short order rebelling)
passive aggressively by
refusing to bathe
until mommy dearest demanded
(well nigh upon
the bewitching hour of midnight)
to witness her son soaked
and essentially marinated
(until my skin shriveled like a prune)
in the (clawfoot) tub
lest he stink to high heavens,
and given a serious dressing down
by the timely principal Mister Clock.
Far back as I can remember,
the significance of hair
assumed an outsize role,
whether enviously eying other lads
their thick straight hank,
or nowadays bristling
with self reproach
cursed with thinning
greasy limp strands
(interspersed with gray)
experiencing shame being seen in public,
a disgrace to our family name of Wagstaff
and an embarrassment
to the human race
ofttimes associating
myself with Samson,
whereat emotional, physical,
and spiritual strength
rooted (pun intended)
within each hair shaft
(the visible part of the hair
that sticks out of the skin),
and rooted in the skin and extends
down to the deeper layers of the skin
surrounded by the hair follicle
(a sheath of skin
and connective tissue),
which is also connected
to a sebaceous gland.
Copyright ©
Matthew Harris
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