Snake Plant

I’m giving a chance to the parts of me that need
to come home. For you, my lover, the concubine
of my truths, I’ll tell you one honesty: the snake plant’s
need for water & the soil’s need for fertilizer every 4 weeks.
I think to give myself that same treatment. I fail
much like the crumbles of roots that become unalive
when getting this plant over to the other pot. We all need room
enough for our greatness. You’re doing great in some other city
& mine too while I wait for you to live someplace other than
my discomfort. I thought I would be done with it
by now, but I’ll take a new leaf,
a new vase to put in some new peace.

⸺

I’m asking a question: why did you let me do it? Create
my loneliness, level its sincerity beyond belief, let grief
take over the bed & beg you to take me back?
Is it the mask or masculinity that did it? It’ll always be
me making messy what was chalked dust to begin with
& you, saying no etched in the memory of my dreams.

⸺

If ecology did a versuz against man, ecology would eat him up
every day of the week. I can’t believe some of the things
I’ve been able to get away with. Cursing you. Badgering you.
Calling to say I’m ready to get back together
& you would’ve too if stronger influences let up again.
The snake plant’s multitudes of brown flakes caked up
in its highest straightened leaves are a sign of decay.
You’d want to clip them if they got cancerous.

⸺

By my TV, it’s grown from ankle-size to God.
It stretches its fingertips like second graders
overcompensating their height. I do that too while picking
white mulberries from trees on our neighborhood walks.
I feed them to you with stems still attached because your eagerness
to kiss the earth stumps dirt-flavored seeds. The snake plant
’s grooves also remind me of your hips moving like water
to Bad Bunny, bare-faced & singing translations in my ear.
Funny: something can sound beautiful & mean fuckboy
in another language. Funny: you let me into you like love
living through the snake plant no matter my sometimes-neglect.