Author's Note:  If you're not familiar with Alanis Morissette's "The Couch" then you will not understand this at all.  It has a very distinct rhythm and flow, so you'll probably get lost if you've never heard it before.

The Brush

You hadn't washed your hair in

Such a long time, it

Dangled over your shoulder,

Who styled it?

Your shampoo never left the bottle

You never saw a hairdresser

You took it upon yourself to comb through it

Your hair reminded me so much of a mop

So I braided it

And you wonder why hornets built a nest

And you can't comb it anymore?

But then how can I begin to brush it

So many years under faucets with dirty water

It was filthy, and oily, and greasy, and

Nappy if you ask me

I don't know where to begin in all of my

Fifty-odd layers I have been strenuously

Fluffing, and trimming, and cutting and

Angling and measuring

Who are you hipper generation

To tell me that I have unresolved split-ends

Not many examples of fruit flies and baby gnats

Making their nests in your locks

How can you just throw words around like

"Flat iron" and "selenium" and "highlights"

I feel uneducated, maybe not born as hair-tastic

As you were

It was much harder in my mom's days

They had bobby pins and flipped their hair both ways

They went from the dryer to the barber

And slept in juice-can curlers

I walked into the salon

I felt so self-conscious near a brush

My hairdresser stood across from me

She was sizing up my hair, I don't know

She had some loving, supportive gel

I didn't know how sticky it could get

You see her spraying hairspray in my eyes

Nearly made me yell, "S&$#!"

Just the other day, my sweet styling foam

I was drying past 2:03

I walked up the stairs in the night time

I remember how they would sometimes trip me

My hair was only responsive in the morning

It would only obey when I was drunk-tired

I was only trying to take care of it

The best way I could

I've worked, sometimes confused

Sometimes ready to chop my hair right off

Sometimes grateful to my barber

Can you imagine, I paid her $75

For just one hairstyle

Sometimes it feels like highway robbery

And sometimes it's peanuts,

I wish I could have given her

A couple more dollars in tips

So here I am no longer battling

My hair demons, not coincidentally

You see as it gets more shiny

You get paid more attention

Now I'm lovingly washing it daily

It is bright, it is shorn,

It's not outrageous, it's not big

And I love it more now

Than I ever have in my whole life