branches

I just had to look up to know I wasn't home. Home has branches like mathematics that barely branch at all, or branch with such even regularity they look like fractals, computer models. The pattern's repeated all the way down to their pine needle fingertips, a long division of straight lines.

Over my head, the branches bent so many directions you could hardly tell where they began. They twisted upon themselves like crimped hair or broken fingers. Bare of leaves, they looked like freakshow bodies dragged nude into science classrooms for voyeurs of tragedy to examine.

Because home is fertile, a perfect place for growing branches. It rains all the time, driving young limbs back in the direction of gravity, smoothing everything out. There, existing as a branch meant a lifetime of bending cruelly trying to outrun the unstoppable sunlight, jumping through the air like bacon in a pan but unable to dodge the heat. Trees are supposed to be more dignified, but these trees were scrappy and beaten up, foot after foot of broken knuckles.

I couldn't see myself in those streets, shopping in those strip malls or driving everywhere with my air conditioning full blast. I could see living under those sad branches, though, and that's a place to start.