Basil Plant Is Hell

Basil plant is a hell. Keep it alive. Water it. Sun it. Wait it out. Leaves become big enough to use as foodie flamboyance, proffering the pungent, peppery little pop of powerflavor in soups and sauces and salads (surprise!). But summer is aging on. Basil plant pushes for repro and so begins its bloom. Flowers tiny white and lovely like little virginal victories in the age of widespread spoil. Though without feathers, they still seem so much like delicate bits of hope. But die they must. By all good gardening behaviors, the blossom is pinched and plucked away from the stem with stern agreement that Mr. Basil’s energy is assigned to building a bounty of lunchable leaves, not blooming out beauty blossoms. Each morning, out into the sunlight, this garden ranger goes with gruesome green digits deployed on a mission to seek, pluck and destroy. Annihilate the little lovelies so we may spice our otherwise lackluster comestibles! The garden spot is left littered with teensy white corpses, each discharging their duty of joyous sweet scent hinting at the glories of herbal death. So delicious. Such a dastard, propagating the questionable lie, Dulce et decorum est pro culina mori.  Hopelessness has petite petals. Basil plant. Damn it. My life is a hell.