I once was poison ivy,

We have selfish lovers who spend their fortunes not on us, as they say, but on their own vanity. With men like that, we have to be light-hearted when they are joyful, in fine fettle when they want to have supper, in a skeptical mood when they are. We're forbidden to have any feelings of our own, on pain of being jeered at and having our credit ruined. We no longer belong to ourselves. We are not beings, but things.