Girl Sitting in Hair Salon, mixed medium

Humming hands hover over snaking hair. It is—ebony—oil
slick—midnight sky—raven-feathered. I watch it flutter to the ground in
cascades, spreading like wings upon hitting tiled floor. Behind me
sunlight beams through the window, spilling onto the chair and dusting
my hair in a honeyed glow. The light dissolves into jet black salon cape,
which is made of—fragrances—shampoo—clean hair—soap.

Hair dryer hisses at jagged hair. A hairbrush wielded in one
hand tussles at tangles with the dryer close behind, fisted in
the other hand. They beat the snarls into obedience, and
they fall reluctantly around my face—face frames, the
stylist called it—I am a canvas, my hair the
border—between scalp and silken strokes of ink. Girl
Sitting in Hair Salon, mixed medium. Face frames, the
stylist said, but—

Hair pools around the salon chair. The mirror is a tapestry of hair
quills woven together. I imagine that the chair is made of hair too
and that I am made of hair. A sculpture fashioned out of
modeling hair and malleable canvas. It grows every
year—knotting and twisting into clusters of flowering ravels.
Until one day a pair of 
hopeful eyes unravels—or ravels—or evaporates—it
and it drips out the mirror.

Hot drops of melted hair sizzle on the floor. The stylist brushes away stray ringlets of sable blackness, liquifying as they flutter to the ground, spreading like wings. I glance at my reflection—my hair is—ebony—oil slick—midnight sky—raven- feathered. It is—warm black paint—and I am a canvas.