Home Is Where The Houseplant Lives

I don't think there was a way around it, yet I know I was very privileged in getting an apartment in a big city with a garden. I enjoy the hum of bees, the specks of fruit flies in the corner of my eyes, as well as when I'm simply having breakfast outside. But when I say I love wildlife, I mean grassroots, pollen, overgrown bushes, trees with branches twisting around like dead people's ankles. I never got enough of flowery imagery. I still have the duck with the forget-me-not shaped glasses I used to play with in the tub. Although it gets much too humid where I live, I never got rid of the swollen wallpaper with the orchids on them. It fits the blossoming imagery rather well. I think I started getting tattoos for the love of plants, really early, too. First, a sleeve on my right arm, down the left leg, then the other. Stacking on each other like hanging gardens. My whole body is scattered with them; even my eyes are now two sunflower buds rising with the sun itself. When I lie down for sunbathing, it must seem like a person evaporated. I love the taste, too. Nothing matches the earthly delight of freshly pulled out nettles. I stopped flossing. I stopped using spices. I never wanted children, but I could hear the seeds calling to me before I learned how to speak. I can taste the stems tickling against my skin. I water myself regularly. Too much, and my children curse me with headaches. It doesn't seem like a rabbit hole for me. It feels like arriving. A leaf has started sprouting out of my throat, oozing sticky juice because of the damage it suffered. I try to sooth it. Vinyl that has been warped by sunlight works the best. Their calling brings me to tears; Mother, help me, there's a head attached to my neck and I'm *in* it.