EJ Green
And I don’t know what to do so I give it water, but the water overflows into the little dish and out onto the floor, forming a trail into a rut in the wood I didn’t see before that leads to a hole in the wall that I also didn’t know about so I get down on my hands and knees and look through to see that the plant has somehow grown into that small dark space as if reaching for a better home, a better caretaker, and all I think is how badly I wish I could make parts of myself small enough to wind and slither into secret spaces where both obsessive watchfulness and neglect couldn’t find me, so I start with my finger, pressing into the hole, trying to fit myself inside but all I do is crumble the drywall and make the hideout that was once safe for my plant, a little more dangerous.
EJ Green’s (they/them) work has appeared in Wigleaf, Pidgeonholes, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Hobart, HAD, Juked, and others. They are the author of Confessions of a Curious Bookseller (under Elizabeth Green), and co-host the paranormal history podcast Slaying Monsters with M. Scott Johnston. Lately, they’ve been writing horror novels.
