A friend once told me I should just buy cut flowers instead of keeping up the ruse of buying living plants. With the way I live, the way I kill things, they will last just as long and probably be cheaper, she said. In fact, before this month the longest I had kept a plant alive was nearly a year. I had found the cheerful little fern sitting on the street in its cheerful little pot on my way to pick up the keys for a new apartment. It felt like a sign, and the plant sat happily on the windowsill in the new apartment until it tumbled over in an earthquake and I realized it was made of plastic. The next day, the landlord told me she was raising the rent by nearly fifty percent. Of course this was illegal, but the portent of the fallen plant set me up to fear any attempt to hold onto my lease. I moved on to a different neighborhood instead, to a new apartment that I would fill with the husks of more dead plants.…
Originally published on July 4, 2024 in Witcraft.