The Shrub in my Brain

Painful denial twittered in his esophagus with the spasming tics of his diaphragm. There would be no lunch today, nor any other day, only the panging questions of a friendship that had long since passed into disfavor—it existed now in name only, an artifact of the past. There was no split, no break, no reason for anger or hatred, only a casual boredom and a sense of wasted time that made an afternoon feel like a misplaced lifetime.

I can feel the spiny branches of a small shrub growing up the inside of my neck and expanding into the open space where my brain is said to be. It rejoices at the roominess of my skull, spreads and stretches its limbs with a joy that only a plant could know. But it wants more, always more.

I can feel it poking at the top of my skull, trying to go up up up towards the sunlight and felling me in the process. But it mustn’t, for either of our sakes. If it succeeds, if it shatters my bony crown and surges outward, exploding out of my head, then I will die. I will die and I will fall down, and then the plant will be sideways. There is no hope.