Once, an old friend asked me; what would my soul look like, if others could see it?

"A bug," I replied.

To crickets, the mantis is terror incarnate--a fierce behemoth, with knives for hands and without mercy. It is to be respected and feared, it is mighty and dignified.

To a human? A mantis is...

"A bug."

It is the debris among the mud between the treads of your sneakers. It is the gross infatuation, the scientific fascination--it is weak. It is small. It is inconsequential.

I yearn for a life of primitive needs and void of wants.

I yearn for the mantis, seeking only to destroy enough to line his stomach, all in a day's work, back to the safe spot where the "bigger and badder" can't reach you.

Life would be eat, sleep, repeat,

and I detest my self-awareness. I'd rather fail the simple life of a mantis and die without need of fulfillment,

Than to realize I'll no sooner discover what "fulfillment" is to myself than reach it--and to be torturously aware of that,

So very, very, existentially aware.

"My soul would look like a bug."