in the perspective of a plant who sees its owner as its mother;

Written by alarminglytired

T.W.: Mentions/Allegory to sexual assault (only the aftermath)
I stand anchored in this space, my leaves stretching toward her warmth, my mother. She waters me daily, yet every droplet carries the weight of her bitterness, of a choice that she was forced to make. I taste the sharp bite of antiseptic on her fingers, the cold, sterile light that hums overhead; too bright for my leaves. She hums softly to me, but beneath those gentle notes, I detect the muted sorrow that seeps from her very soul, a pain that echoes through my roots. Each lullaby, meant to nurture, feels like a piercing wound to my tender form. I am meant to thrive in her care, and yet I am starving. 

I don’t blame her in the slightest, though. She wanted to be a doctor. She wanted to help people and be their beacon of hope in these dark times. But other people are greedy. Other people are selfish. They left her to throw away the articles of fabric she was wearing, to scrub her skin multiple times to try to purify her transgressed world. But it remains. She knows it is still there, for I exist. 

Since then, I learned to twist and bend to her unspoken will, even as I feel the shadow of decay that encircles her. It clings to my fading leaves, binding us together in an unbreakable bond of suffering. As I sense the energy ebbing from my core, I feel her embrace me. Those hands, familiar only with anguish and tainted by despair, cradle me, as gently as she can. Her hands shake uncontrollably, and her breath quickens, but she holds me. I wish she knew I did not blame her in the slightest for reacting this way. It is not me she detests, not me she wishes desperately to rid all trace of. I wish she knew that I did not blame her in the slightest. I wish she knew that. It was in that moment, for the first time as a plant, that I wished to be human. Because it is here, amidst our shared pain, that I long to smile.