prickly.

I have a 'divorce cactus'.

This cactus was bought a few months (I think) before all the unraveling, against my husband's aesthetic of plant design. I have always adored the protective measures plants take... and find similarities or desires to be similar. So the cactus came home, somewhat tiny, all spines and a desire to be larger... a 'monster cactus', according to the Home Depot tag luring unsuspecting MA housewives to buy something other than hot pink Impatiens.

The cactus came home with a number of questionably designed plants. Hens and Chicks, a few assorted succulents with rounder edges to keep it company.

It thrived while everything else started disintegrating in that house. I spent months looking for a job, months alone after he moved out, months packing boxes lined up on either side of the living room labeled A and J waiting to do battle or simply sulk off into a UHaul in December. I ate shitty frozen dinners and drank enough beer to take the edge off my control-less life. And my companion? The monster cactus, who by now was an undulating wave of spines and a bad attitude. That cactus had no loyalty at the time... I grazed my foot against the fat side of it one night and thought I would kill myself from how badly those invisible little shards hurt. I think it laughed at me that night...

The cactus drove down in the UHaul cup holder when A drove my sullen troops of boxes to the storage place on Varick. The cactus went on to NJ with my father and I took a bus back to Boston with A... I didn't cry once.

A few weeks later I was home in NJ, spinning in my own world. One night late I stepped out of the shower and saw the cactus on the top shelf of my parent's bathroom. All of the cactus in the house are there, and they tend to thrive. Mine was rotten. That huge wave of spite and spines was brown, and nasty. and there was a tiny bit of green left. It was too high to be noticed before it was too late.

I didn't sleep, and was confused by how absolutely attached I was to it. My sister, who works in a plant nursery, came over for breakfast and I nearly cried when I tried to get her to understand how important it was that it lived. She brought it to work and they cut away everything but that little bit of green. She tended to the little stub in the ground, a shadow of its former self, for weeks and weeks. And now here it sits with me, rooted one more time, about to start curling onto itself, and in some charming attempt to make me feel better and to assert itself...

It has more spines than it knows what to do with on its little body.