She had made a practice of caring about someone, and had poured some of her energy into it daily.
The love she received was like the love a spider had for its next meal. Paralyzed by poison, wrapped up and dangling in the breeze, breathless, awaiting demise.
She didn’t die.
Eventually the toxic effects subsided. Regaining her motility she cut herself free.
She was still in the habit of pouring a part of herself into someone else, and that energy needed someplace to go, so she planted a garden.
She tended and watered it every day, giving this energy someplace to go. A couple of vines put forth a couple of flowers that instantly fell limp and disappeared. One by one the plants withered away and died under her care, until only two remained; an eggplant and a long spindly tomato vine. Neither had ever set flower or fruit.
She watched her friends bring in bountiful harvests while watering her sad nightshades. As love became poison and poison turned to water, she emptied her soul of it into the soil. The devouring earth could digest it and make it into something new.
She laughed, realizing that in this manner, everything we love turns to shit.
So she let the garden die, and allowed herself to herself bloom.
The Big Book of Maven 