Poetry: Lynn White

Beauty Parlor, Doll, and Motherly Love

Words by Lynn White
QuailBellMagazine.com
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*Editor's Note: Previously published in ​Guide To Kulchur Creative Journal, ITWOW, She Did It Anyway Anthology, and ​Yellow Chair Review.

Beauty Parlor 
 
Step inside my parlor,
my pampering parlor.
You will be remade, reborn,
stroked and smoothed,
petted and prodded,
cosseted and curled,
given the attention you deserve
as well as a new face
and shiny new hair.

In Pampers Parlor we’ll recreate you.
We’ll reboot your confidence
and give you a new chemistry
as we gloss your hair and lips.
As we shape your face
with new shadows and glows.
As we apply layer upon layer
of chemical shit topped by
nose retching fragrances.
You won’t know yourself when
you step outside
dolled up to perfection,
protected in your new mask.
 
And what then?
Will you go home
and comb it all out
and wash it all off,
preferring,
after all,
the person,
with the old skin
and fresh air color
to the new robotic doll.
The pampers product is
designed to be disposable,
after all.
 
Or will you keep it
as long as you can..
Try not to move your new face.
Try not to upset your new hair.
Place a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign
on your forehead.
Keep it as long as you can.
Even if stinky and crusty,
you’ll still have your face on.
You feel
so bland,
so pale,
so wan,
exposed
without it
on the journey back
to the beauty parlor.

Doll

My little princess.
My china doll with your
peachy skin and
golden hair. 
In pink frills
I dressed you up,
combed you and curled you.
Made you into
my special pet,
my little angel,
to be loved and cherished.
My creation.
My little girl.
 
But all the time
you were making up yourself,
getting ready to 
smash the porcelain,
and break out
to become 
the creation you had
already made up
even before you painted 
and inked your pearly skin,
combed your hair straight,
and gelled it 
into jagged spikes
with a pink splash.
Shockingly, piercing the past,
you broke out into your future.
 
For you were never a princess,
never a doll,
and most of all, little girl,
you were never mine,
never mine to mould.

​Motherly Love 

I have spent a lifetime
trying to break away,
trying to break out,
trying to find myself.
Always on the edge,
always on the outside,
not quite a part,
of it, not quite
a beatnik,
or a mod,
hippy, or
punk.
 
I was early to realize that
what she wanted me to be
was what she had wanted
for herself, about her, not me.
I wanted to escape such love.
I thought I could escape.
I thought I had escaped.
And I did, surely I did
escape
some
of it.
 
But not all.
Not enough.
So even now I feel tethered.
After all this time of leaving
her behind,
I remain
unsure
of my
own.