Rose With Thorns

I surround you,
     beanstalk without beans
Invade you, 
     rose with thorns,
     reach my painful stalks
     deep inside your
     comfort zone.

Creep up on you
     in evening hours,
          on misty corners,
               In the drizzle.
          Permeate your
     private life as if
personal property.

              Ambush your
              rooted feet: 
              seated between your
              chantharels, boletes
              and beet root:
              I eat your stamina away

In tangled sheets
     in sweaty nights
          of dreams
               and nightmares,
                    I envelop you
                         in thoughts of fever
                              without pills to kill.

                              Fly around you, a
                         mosquito buzz,
                    a tiny horror,
               as a vampire waits
          to be let in;
     as a robin begs, in throaty
singing

            And when you sleep
I'll be right there
                              deep inside you
                   a pest that never
                        leaves you
     A rodent that eats
             your resolve

Until you silently wish,
     by lack of tears
     and voice...
Until you wish
     that you would stop
     to be there

Then I will
have won.

***

February 26, 2017
Copyright © Darren White