I Used To Take My Anger Out On Plants

When the racket broke
I’d yank on a bamboo pole
twisting and turning until it snapped,
then stab a cactus with it.
I’d watch its wounds ooze
a greenish translucent slime
before I swung hard
to put it out of its misery.

I’d kick the ice plants barefoot,
their bulbous green spikes
bursting into pieces, some
getting stuck between my toes,
others scattering like little arms and legs
after an explosion
on a battlefield.

One day my dad noticed
the stab-holes,
chopped limbs, scars, decapitated cacti,
figs bleeding white on the driveway.
He took me by the hand
and walked me around the nursery
to show me the damage I had done.
“Plants are living beings,” he said.
“They feel pain, too.”

I wanted to say, “That’s the point,”
but he had taken care to raise those plants
like the children he had lost,
so I said, “I’m sorry.”

When the weekend was over
I’d go back to my mom’s apartment,
riding the city bus and walking the mile
past the trees, bushes, and flowers
protected by a fence alongside the golf course,
an untouchable paradise.

I’d ascend the stairs of Riverview Building A
as slowly as I could
and arrive at door number eight.
I looked longingly at the potted rubber tree
standing next to the air conditioner,
wanting to push it over, spill its soil,
watch it crash against the concrete of the balcony
before rolling over the edge to its death.

But I didn’t.

I’d open the door and slink past
my mom’s boyfriend
lying on the couch, drinking whiskey,
watching something fuzzy on the black and white TV.
I’d flinch as he roared,
“Go to yer room, ya lil’ fuckin’ twat!”

I’d slip quietly and quickly
to the room I shared with my
younger sister and older brother,
both of them tense
and soundless under headphones or the fantasy of toys
from the 99-cent store.

I needed to do some damage,
but we didn’t have any plants in our room.
So I ripped a sheet of paper out of my notebook
and scribbled hard until words formed
at the tip of my pencil all on their own,
“I hate you,” three hundred times.