Letter to a Dying Houseplant
Free verse to save a life
Free verse to save a life
You tireless thing of beauty. It’s been a long struggle ever since you were lain in poor soil by ignorant hands.
You’ve been overwatered, underwatered, given only fluorescent light when you needed direct sunshine. Abused with leftover coffee not yet cooled, befouled with cigarette butts, passed from home to home like an unwanted orphan.
But you didn’t wait to wilt in your plastic pot. You didn’t resign yourself to the slow, stagnant death of letting each leaf yellow and dry into dust.
You are a thriver.
You continued to push forward, bravely putting forth new tendrils seeking more than you were given. Believing, in spite of the harshness of your life, that there had to be more. Stem after stem, leaf after leaf, you kept on. You trusted that what you needed, you would find.
It’s not time to give up. You’ve endured and emerged green where others would have shrivelled into compost.
The bin is no place for a plant like you. Dying is below you.
Bud forth, and live.
Be there for when the sun comes out.