Every college student has an addiction.
Perhaps it is books, coffee, music, et cetera.
I thought I would not.
Reality has since confronted me.
My addiction is plants. I love plants.
Green, growing, grasping, gasping plants.
I love tame succulents that purr on my windowsill.
The globe of moss swinging above the succulents.
The aloe vera reaching its fingers toward the sunlight.
The sansevieria lounging in a ceramic mug.
The hanging baskets with tendrils looking to choke me.
I love them all, even the shriveled corpse in a glass jar,
Unfortunate victim of midnight forgettings.
But addictions always demand more.
So more appear.
In the dead of night, pruning leaves, cutting at nodes, hoping to propagate more.
One alone is not enough.
My first succulent was special, a being never known before.
The fifth is a soldier, meant to fall in line and join the ranks.
I find friendship not so.
It is not like the small army of the botanist collector.
My dear friend, you are more like a bonsai,
Prized and loved. Tended by an old man's frail hands.
He sees it. He loves it. He knows it.
He knows no other like it.
Beloved, know that amid a sea
Of beautiful plants,
Of beautiful people,
Of beautiful souls,
So lovely and so many,
You are still a bonsai to me.
An individual. Still loved.
Not exalted above all others.
But known and needed.
I have met many.
But you have not become one of my small army of names.
My good love.