I sit in the barber's chair,
staring into the mirror behind the sink -
on the pictured wall, beautifully-tonsored
models trapped above the hair gels looking cool for ever more -
and on the barber's face an expression of close
concentration, snipping here and snipping there,
as he has snipped a thousand times before
while a ready-programmed conversation
spills from his brain, through his mouth and
into his customer's ear.

I look into the mirror at the man in the barber's chair.
I know the face. it's always there, staring
dispassionately back.
But is that me behind those eyes?
And if the face were
different, would I be different too?

Are we our faces? Is that all?
The hair falls off the barbers's scissors in clumps to the floor.
Bits of me mingled there with bits of other people;
minutes of their lives.
Anger, smiles, going to work, coffee breaks,
"Yea. I'm OK thanks. And you?"
All those interactions;
all those feelings welling up and falling back
like waves against a wall;
decisions; and indecisions.

There's a month of me under the barber's feet.
And now the barber's boy has come to sweep it all away.
Neatly, the story of my life is dumped into a bin.