The wind blew it in. That’s when it got its first taste. I’ve been trying to keep it out ever since, but what can I do when I’m asleep?  I’ve braided and rebraided it, tucked it behind one ear. I’ve gelled it down, forcing it straight, out of the way, and into submission. I’ve cut it, plucked it from my scalp to see the follicle, only to find it writhing, searching in an eyeless, sensual way as if it could smell from whence it came. I stared, watching it move as I held it, move on its own. Move without the aid of the wind, my own trembling hand, or anything outside itself.  It strained toward me, almost pulling itself taut from where I held it between two fingers and a space it craved, though whether the pore it was wrenched from was its pined for location or the cavern of my ear, I couldn’t be sure. It wanted back. It wanted in.

I looked at it closely, watched it reach for the side of my head, reach for my nose when I got too close. I imagined it slithering into the darkness, pushing past the short hairs into the inner cavity en route to the fleshy slick of my throat. Up or down, up or down. Decisions, decisions. The brain might be nice, as might the back of the throat. Would it be able to resist rooting in the lining of my stomach, growing, growing to create a ball so wiry and coarse it could cut its way out through the dermis layers and sprout on my skin like a flower in concrete? Or would it find a toughened mound and push through with a sharpened point to mock me from the corner of my chin?

It stretched as I marveled, trying to read its thoughts, this thing grown sentient while I was unaware. It yearned for me, pulled away from my fingers and toward my flesh as though drawn by a magnet. No, not my flesh, I realized. In a horrifying moment of clarity, I understood what it wanted and what it was prepared to do to get it. I understood the conspiracy to get into my dark warmth come Hell or high water all too well. The lash dipping into the white of my eyes, bringing tears that blurred my vision while simultaneously signaling my fingers to fix the problem, told the tale.