My mother's second husband gave her a fern plant when they got married
It was a symbolism of their love, my mother killed it in a couple of days
Because she didn’t want to put in the work of watering it
Or maybe she tried too hard and smothered it with affection
I can’t remember which because I was young
That fern heard many arguments while it laid wilting, forgotten
It heard the screaming, the mockery
The crying, “please don’t leave me”
It heard her using her children as shields against her angry husband
To protect herself from the screaming agony
Pitting red balled fists against the whimpering adolescence
While my mother huddled in a corner out of her body
The fern rotted for weeks on our front porch
No one to check on it, to see if it was still breathing
To make sure that everything was okay
It wasn’t, the love fern was dead
Maybe it could’ve been happy if it went to a different family