Not all growth is gentle, not
all bloom is a blessing. Some seeds wait
on the soil for the sun. Some, buried by force,
still rise. Language tangles like ivy, covers
what’s been razed: a garden drawn over scarred earth,
every vine tracing a line we forgot to erase.
They say plants are peaceful, but don’t you see
the struggle in each stem’s reach? There’s rage
in photosynthesis and in the hunger for light.
Roots spread beneath borders no blueprint can hold
cracking foundations we swore were secure.
The language of growth is resistance—
the dandelion’s refusal to be tamed.
But even this greening is complicit.
Don’t forget what gardens hide, the bones,
the barbed wire, the polished brass plaques
marking whose names get remembered.
We manicured the land while forgetting
who it was stolen from. So much violence
fertilizes the next cycle.
The problem isn’t just that some flowers are weeds—
it’s who decides which get to stay,
which get uprooted. And the earth turns,
plants reach through ruin, insisting
on their place. Even as we map out
what belongs and what should be erased.