ode to my hair

it is feral. when i tie it up with black rubber bands, i feel as bad as when i feel bad caging my dog because it's like caging a lion.

i rinse it with mud, and it writhes with its oneness with the earth. then i dry it and it feathers, collapses over my shoulders like a tired child might do. when it dries, it dries upwards, like i were tearing it out in my dreams. and the pieces are like piggy tails and almost-red dry grass and i look in the mirror and say, "i look like i've been electrocuted!"

my sister laughs because her hair is like downward facing tail feathers, and it looks different every day and is the color of the clouds when sun shines through them.

mine is the color of brown mice, darting through the dark grass, trying to get out of the rain. it shouts at me, each strand comes to life, hurling itself away from my scalp singing songs to the concrete and the wooden panels on the floors, "take me! take me!" so when i tug, finally give in, the strands slide through my finger and land in a ring on the floor, in a pile of rings. they stay there until they are swept up and thrown outside and finally we live in a world that is just pieces of my hair that have escaped because they could not be tamed.

and that's not all. i have hair in other spots too, peeking from beneath the surface of my soil skin, lunging for air. it's this curly wild type everwhere except for under my arms. there is like a baby's new hair, or a man's old, balding both, it is happy to be where it is.

my hair is wild. it is the black in the zebra stripes. it terrifies me so lovlingly that i could not imagine living without it.