Nurturing

I.

I killed another plant today. I thought I had it this time.
Thought I saw my thumbs sprouting bits of green.
How silly of me not to know. It was desperate for the sun.

II.

Once, thinking myself able, I made a bowl of chicken soup for my significant other. He was sick with the flu. I cut up the vegetables, boiled the chicken, added some spices. The result: half-cooked carrots, chicken tough as day-old gum, broth as translucent as his face when I said it was for him.

III.

I go to my mother to see if she can nurse the ferns, the peace lilies, the succulents back to health. She whose house is full of foliage; she who so well knows how to tend to things. “I did everything I could,” I lie. I do not tell her about the carelessness; the days spent too far inside my head.

IV.

I read about how a flower carries the cosmos. The earth, the water, the gardener. Everything exists within it. It doesn’t try to be anything but itself. I want to be like the flower. I want to carry the cosmos. Maybe then I’ll stop searching for the sun.