radicle ovenbird “There was a time,” he said, “when I thought I was everything to you.” “But that was never true,” she said and watched the pain cross his face. “What a horrible thing, to be everything,” she argued. “Thank goodness I have more than one soul to love. Each one differently. Each one in a way that will never be repeated. Mother, father, brother, pet, friend, child, lover. I could never say that one type of love is better than another. They are all essential to my heart.” This isn’t the response he wanted. He wanted to be placed at the pinnacle of her world. He wanted her to say that she would trade any love for his. But all her loves grow roots so strong and thick that to heave them from the soil would be catastrophic to her heart. She can’t even say she loves him more than the dog and he takes this as an insult. But she loves the dog in an uncomplicated way. The love that flows between her warm body and his furred form is pure and gentle and as deep as the earth’s spinning core. It’s never a question of more or less. It’s a question of depth and one depth does not preclude another. There are depths. And the network of rhizomes that reach into the earth keep water rising into her belly and her mind unfurls, green and seeking, for having been fed. “If you were everything I would suck you dry, and we would both shrivel to husks,” she said. But maybe he wants to hear the dry rattle of seeds in her head. Maybe he wants to feel them crunch between his teeth. 260311 what's it to you? who go blather from