Reni Roxas
Personal Grooming
This stay-home bullshit is getting to me.
My hair is growing!
Growing and showing
growing and showing
GRAY at the roots.
My nails are getting long—again.
My painted toe nails, chipped and overtaken by more nail matter,
remind me of the decayed ruins of Pompeii.
My eyebrows need tweezing.
Why is it so hard to pick up a pair of tweezers?
Why trim, why prune the endless unending,
for a world not watching?
All nail salons are closed.
The Governor has deemed them
non-essential. AS IF!
Day after day after day after day
the mirror is showing all the facets
of me I’ve been hiding.
I don’t feel like turning on the news
Outside
the grass
keeps
growing
—Submitted on 04/09/2020
Reni Roxas‘s work has appeared in Writer’s Digest, ParentMap, and Brain, Child. Originally from the Philippines, she lives in Washington State.
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