A Few Thoughts On Ivy Poem by Camilla Keenan Koch

My dreams have been worse since I met her
She is an exposed, flayed nerve
She singes me
She is a bloody gashlike wound
I can fall into and claw out of
A tiger, covered in blood
I understand;
And what's more, I despise her
She thinks she is strong for merely surviving
But her roots are weak and tenuous
Like ivy
Strangling to survive

Or worse, like her heart
Ivy can be beautiful
But in time it crumbles buildings

She takes little nourishment
And won't run with the pack
And seems to want to die
But is surprised and unameliorable
When hyenas hunt her

I will only add that you cannot save her
She does not want to be saved
Only kept, like a pet
Like an indignant, bitchy house cat
And you'll keep her, too;
You think you're being practical.