myth for african violet

I know what you dream about. I can feel it in the way you walk. I know where you lose your thoughts to. I can tell by the cadence of your breath. I know you’re looking for some light behind the mountain that is your life. I know you’re searching for tracks in your wildness. You like to thank that I’m your houseplant. but you’re just as wild as any of us are. Sure, we might have been transformed along the way. Our pollen sometimes runs dry and we have forgotten to make seeds. But you tear my leaves off so I can find new roots through them when you’re feeling generous - when you want to feel productive. And what is more productive than a plant.

My leaves touch the cold window when your partner closes the door. And the door remains closed for many days later. You don’t shower. You don’t water me and you barely notice as I wilt.

When they tell stories about the time they will be horrified to think that we were forgotten in corners of windowsills. Many died.

I could have told you that you wouldn’t find your soul watering the computer with your leaky eyes. But you could as you saw me bloom in shade, bringing a miracle to a north facing window. They will not understand why we were not worshipped.

I know a lot about mountains. Some people say that mountains begin in the depths of the earth and rise up. But I have been part of their creation too. One day, when it has been ages since you ate anything but eggs, you will be on your endless screen - your pollinating device crying and you’ll look at me. That is when I will tell you the story of how I kept the mountains together when the sun wanted to make them nothing but sweet grasses and acacia. But I, with my magnatizing leaves and my hypnotizing anthers, kept the rain. I held the clouds. I summoned the bees and in the insects who brought the birds and small creatures who carried the trees with them.

And you will take a shower. It won’t be much. But people never thought much of me.