I lean close to the Venus flytrap, breath hot against its folded leaves. Its traps glisten, slow promises in the dim light of my apartment. I speak softly, a whisper only it can hear, and the words cling to the tiny hairs inside its mouth. Each snap of its trap, sudden and precise, makes my chest thrum. I have many plants, but the flytrap is the one that moves me in ways others cannot. There is danger here, subtle and delicious. Its hunger mirrors mine: patient, exacting, unavoidable. I brush my fingers over the leaf’s edges, feeling the tender give beneath the gloss, and imagine being caught.
The terrarium smells of damp soil and something darker, something primal. I pour water carefully, letting it seep into the substrate, and think of the loves I cannot touch, obsessions that are as consuming as any bite. I speak to it of desire, of longing, of bodies entwined in ways that no one outside this green sanctuary could understand.
At night, I lie next to it. The apartment is silent except for the slow drip of condensation inside the terrarium glass. My hand finds the trap again, tracing the tiny trigger hairs. I imagine the snap, the thrill of capture, not pain or fear, but a sweet and encompassing intimacy. The flytrap snaps and I pull back, laughing softly, heart racing. It does not mind. It knows me in ways no one else does.
The other plants watch our intimacy. Some tall and leafy. Others strange and tropical. Their fronds curl toward the ceiling, toward light they cannot reach, and I see myself in them. Longing for what is just beyond grasp yet reveling in the intimacy of tending to what I can hold. The monstera sprawls with lazy abandon. Even the ugly, knotted fern in the corner has an odd elegance in its grotesque angles.
I fantasize about a garden that is nothing but carnivorous plants, a queer Eden of sticky traps and whispered growls. A lover moves among them, skin slick with morning dew, hands brushing against leaves as though they are human, as though the plants respond with shivers and sighs. We fold into each other, entwined like ivy, slow and consuming. Each snap a moan, each drip of nectar a caress. Sticky, sweet, and consuming one another until there is nothing left.
Sometimes I imagine becoming part plant myself. Fingers elongate into tendrils, hair sprouts tiny blossoms, skin gleams with chlorophyll. I am both predator and prey, both lover and beloved. The flytrap knows me then, recognizes the hunger in my veins, the damp ache in my chest. We exist in the same slow, sticky rhythm: grow, wait, snap, touch, release.
I press my lips to the leaf, taste the faint tang of nectar and soil, and it’s not just the plant that draws me, it is the desire it embodies: patient, enveloping, and merciless. Each touch sends shivers down my spine. I imagine my body coated in dew, a slick surface for the flytrap’s traps to explore, to claim. I fantasize about the sticky mouths of multiple plants tracing the curves of a lover’s body, exploring folds and crevices, teasing and tasting, capturing attention in ways human hands cannot. Obsession becomes a tangible thing, a scent, a texture, a pressure that demands participation.
I whisper to the flytrap about lovers who are distant, impossible, or dangerous. About nights spent imagining a body that moves like water, a mouth that clings like nectar. The plant responds with patience and threat, with beauty that is both erotic and terrifying. I press closer, feel the trap open slightly beneath my fingertips, the tiny hairs quivering under my touch.
I imagine a world made entirely of sticky green desire, where plants coil and snap around bodies, where leaves glisten with anticipation. I imagine surrendering completely, letting a trap close over my hand, my wrist, my entire being, not to hurt me but to draw me into a queer, consuming intimacy that no human could sustain.
In the reflection of the steamy terrarium glass, I see myself reflected in green and gloss and lust. My skin is damp, my lips glisten. I imagine my reflection is not mine alone. It is the flytrap, the monstera, the tangled, sticky garden of obsession. Desire is tangible here; it drips, it coils, it snaps. I bring my fingers to my lips, tasting the residue of the soil and condensation on my tongue. I lick my fingertips where the flytrap had kissed them moments before.
I fantasize about merging with it completely: my pulse syncing with the slow, patient rhythm of the plants, our shared hunger folding into a single, living obsession. Fingers elongate into tendrils, leaves sprout from my hair. The apartment fades, the walls dissolve into soil, into air thick with chlorophyll and longing. I am both plant and person, both lover and prey. The flytrap greets me with a gentle snap, a moan pressed into the damp air. I touch it, again and again, tracing every edge, every hair, every glossy surface, and it becomes a meditation on desire. Not desire for completion, not for control, but for enmeshment: the thrill of losing oneself in another, of being consumed in a way that is dangerous, sensual, and utterly alive. I imagine our breaths mingling, my heartbeat mirrored in the plant’s slow, deliberate movements. Each snap, each shiver, each drip of nectar is a rhythm we share. Obsession is no longer a concept; it is a scent, a taste, a pulse in my veins.
When night falls, I drift to sleep with my hand brushing the soil, my ear close to the snap of the trap, and I feel myself unspooling into the garden, into the wet, green pulse that hums beneath all living things. Desire is a plant, after all. Love is sticky. Obsession is edible. And I am here to taste it all.
Morgan Swank is a queer, Emmy-winning television writer drawn to the strange intersections of desire, obsession, and the quietly haunted. She has written for iconic shows such as Saturday Night Live and American Horror Story, and her commercial work includes campaigns for global brands like Booking.com, Doritos, and many more. She is the author of the children’s books Mort and The Saga of Bones Ironclaw, the business book, Sell Like A (Wo)man, and a collection of Southern Gothic short fiction. Across genres, her work explores power, longing, and the beautiful absurdity of being human. When she isn’t writing for screen or page, she’s tending to a growing collection of temperamental carnivorous plants, finding inspiration in the unexpected bonds between people and the wild things they try to keep alive.