Katie Oliver

My boyfriend is a plant enthusiast: the more exotic the better. Old man’s beard, elk horn, fishbone. The bedroom is particularly full of them. They hang from curtain poles, draping down like Rapunzel’s hair. Distressingly phallic cacti loiter in corners; succulents take up space where they shouldn’t. Cacti are a type of succulent, he tells me. Whatever, I reply. You’re succulent, he says, and bites my neck. I roll my eyes. I go along with it, because it’s easier. When I get back from work, more seem to have appeared. Did you buy more plants? No, he says, flipping through…