you,
you are poison ivy.
growing in my heart, sprouting first as a little bud at the base and then wrapping your tendrils and vines around tighter and tighter until I can barely breathe.

you are poison ivy
itching at the disassembled strands of my affections and i want to tear my chest open, pluck off the petals of my heart, hands coated in pollen and
tell you
there are no more petals
left to give.

you are poison ivy
you still spread your arms around me, reaching for more that i can give, lathering my pollen into every crevice of your poison skin.

you are a silver bulb and I am the moth that attaches to it, shadowing your every move,
the way your fork always grazes your plate before
you
set it down.
The way you run your fingers over the delicate arch of your ear or how you draw the sides of your books close together when you read,
as if trying to pull the
literature close to your body, letting it seep into your naked eyelids.

I wish i was that literature.

There was a whole new garden of emotions, of loss and sorrow sprouting delicately at my fingertips and
you
were not aware and
now all i want is to uproot my garden and start again.

you are poison ivy

and i can't stand you, that itching that feels like screaming and ripping and scarring

You were an itch that i scratched over and over until i bled

and once the bleeding had stopped and the cuts had scabbed over
I itched it again

and

again

and

again.