Baby, lay your head on my lap one more time
Tell me you belong to me
Baby say that it's all gonna be alright
I believe that it isn't

-On the Bound, by Fiona Apple

I grew up with a usual amount of plants. They were small themselves, and not too ridiculously present, but they were there nonetheless - one on every living room table, a few hanging from the ceiling, some on the floor in front of cabinets.

My dad comes from the bedroom to look through the video cabinet for a movie. My mom enters the room from another direction and watches him for a moment.

"Be careful of the plant." I don't know exactly how she said it. I like to think there was some sort of edge to her voice, and that those words did a poor job of masking a hostile sentiment that laid beneath. But I can't say that for sure.

"Fuck your goddamned plant." He slams the door shut and kicks the plant over, then retreats to the bedroom. My mother goes back to the kitchen. I go to my own room, to write and to think about what has just happened. Each of us in our own separate corners, we are able to feign togetherness in a way that rarely withstands physical presence. Silence can be a comfort. Sometimes, it is the only one.

They fought often, arguments that seemed like they should have made the walls tremble. But of course, the walls weren't the targets of that angry volume. I don't know what, if anything, trembled within my parents instead.

At first, I cried and hid my head under the pillow. But at some point I started to listen at my door instead. What were they saying, with such emotional explosions? I can't even remember. Much later, I'd join in too, asserting my identity as a participant, and sometimes initiator, in the involving, center-stage events of my household.

The plants were healthy enough. Somehow they, too, were able to strive, and even grow strong, in an environment where tension often tainted the air like the smoke of burning rubber. Maybe they also shouted among themselves, in a range outside our hearing, trying to prove their own existences by leaving painful marks on each other, then looking at them. What better way to see yourself than to see how you affect others? What scars more visibly than pain?

I like to argue now, though not too loudly. I prefer to end them before they cross from cool, exploratory intellect into blind, subjective emotion. An active mind makes for an interesting person, but in everyday situations lips moved by passion are best saved for kisses.

My parents are finally divorcing - at least one, or maybe nine, or perhaps even twenty years after what should have been their final separation.

My mother's apartment is like a jungle now. Today, one plant even reaches all the way from one end of the room to another. Each large, complete individual has its own clear, confident voice. There's no need to shout anymore. In all the rooms, in every corner, and in every possible place outside, my mother's home is filled with plants.