TORTURE

The toxic vapors sear my nose

and blacken my tongue,

and having my lungs squeeze closed

is so very fun.

Not to mention my other sad,

defenseless things,

that are twisting and churning

and bursting their seams!

It’s just a matter of time,

of course,

before I’m turned into

a liquefied corpse.

I can feel my liver wither

inside my quivering skin,

my spleen is now rotting

as it begins

to drip down my neck

and happily right into my ear -

(is it done, yet?)

I can still hear her sigh,

“Sit still, don’t squirm!”

while the sadist patiently applies

my Toni home perm.

* Creating a long-lasting curl has been a universal quest for women possibly since the Garden of Eden. Once hair treatment chemicals were formulated to be safe enough for home use in the 50’s, Toni dominated the home permanent market. Regardless of how beautiful and smooth the luscious locks of beauties smiling confidently from the Toni box, actual results were often tragically less.

It became a classic ordeal of growing up a little girl in America to endure the agonies of the home permanent, traditionally perpetrated by mothers everywhere about a week before school pictures.