How I started   a forest in my bathroom

seduced by portable supermarket ferns
gardenless creatures like me hardly ever thirsty but
IKEA GREENERY IS GOOD
and potted plants suck up stress

the fern was no fern
a woman gazed clean and free from packaging
she breathed   Air Purifying Plant Mix®
tested by NASA and TNO

at home I heard

trees talk underground
about weather
the climate is changing they exchange  
fungi with super powers
transfer calming minerals
to a household account

a single tree barely exists
a single fern does not deserve the name
I bought another
and a third
I bought the entire last tray
of mix

until a staff member   cautioned me
in Suriname you have to fight nature
or she takes over  
first your garden then your house your
bed your shower curtain

but these days, forests grow indoors
rows of inert toadstools    lining the road
is the word overgrown even still used here  

how could I ever have dared
to distinguish myself from plants
where did the mix begin and I

watched my barelyferns grow lonely
on the windowsill
side by side in plastic earthenware
which   repels everything
roots penetrating compulsive thoughts

my plant mix cried in the shower
where I depotted and buried their flaccid underbellies
in the cut-out soil

then I carried the remaining
indoor greenery upstairs  

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