Branches
Micaela Myers

Last night, my hair turned to branches. My fingers felt their rough bark, got pricked by their needles. In my dream, I could feel them stiff and growing. Branches of all sorts, some were thick with tufts of pine needles bursting along the way, others were thin and full of leaves. It wasn’t only trees, but ivy twisting round the trunks, jumping from branch to branch, and causing tangles.

My best friends were there examining my hair with curiosity. Pulling the ivy back to get a better look, “Here’s some Birch,” one observed. Others tugged to make sure the trees were rooted, really a part of my head, “Oh, I just spotted a bit of Maple sprouting up,” another exclaimed.

It felt odd, the heavy weight of the branches. What was more, I could feel them growing, spreading their base at my scalp, growing right out of my head. “Maybe I really need to start blow-drying,” I commented. “Perhaps all that moisture has caused this condition.”

But as I lay there the branches grew with increasing rapidity, a full bursting forth from my head. I realized that it was my thoughts themselves causing their growth, that each speculation, idea, thought, realization and feeling was feeding the roots of these branches—shooting them from my mind straight through my scalp and up up to the heavens. I awoke with them still there, still growing. What does it mean? I thought. The feeling of them bursting through my head, their weight.