Reading a Magazine on my Lunch Break

Sacrifice your dignity on the altar of
eternal beauty,
one more treatment and you’ll be just perfect, darling.
Lose a couple pounds and then you’ll be just right.
All the beauty clichés your mother whispered in your
baby ears
about skin deep beauty in the eye of the beholder;
the beholder is a man
and you don’t look as young as you used to, baby.
Your hair and skin are chemically smoothed to
a synthetic shine
but your eyes in sunken sockets
glitter like a hungry cat’s.
Your enemy’s arsenal is powerful.
Its weapons are sharp and bright
and they tear you to pieces in broad daylight.
Shock and awe and desperation
to attain the unattainable
Perfection.