I didn’t know the nettles would sting
worse than a handful of hypodermic
needles. The neighbour should’ve
been more careful retrieving the rose
nestled like a fairy-tale princess in their patch.
He ought to have noticed the purple
warning lights of flowers, their warpaint,
how every other plant backed away.
I planted the nettles while the moon
kept watch. Bribed a generous amount
of fertiliser to satisfy their feral tongues.
I’d had enough of the Bluetooth speaker
banging its fists against my wall
at all hours, but didn’t know the nettles’
rhizomes would slither through the floorboards
and into my ear. You were born to do this,
the voice said. And I believed it,
even as its children started to swallow me.
