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Gideon Mar 8
My mother is a spider.
Carefully crafted webs fill my childhood home.
With great care, she weaves day and night,
trapping her family inside.
We struggle but only doom ourselves further.
I am a fly,
buzzing as I wrap myself in her silken strands.
My sister is a butterfly,
flapping her wings as the webbing pulls off her beautiful scales.
My brothers are bees
who once sought bright flowers and hives of others like them.
My father is a moth,
guided to the web’s shimmering light.
Now, we all lie still, drained of life,
slowly being consumed by the weaver.
jewel Mar 3
there’s a clear distinction between getting what you want
and wanting more than what you can get, she says,
kneeling in front of a piping hot kettle and a small bowl
accompanied by a humorously small bamboo whisk.

Bug-Eye looks at me. the meaning of a sentence is lost in the hexes of her wings, her spindly thin abdomen, the way her fragile limbs twitch.

she tries to smile. she doesn’t. i turn to the murky pool in front of me, losing myself in the way the petals relax on such a delicate surface. the air is thick with heat. i collect more than enough sweat upon my forehead.

you need not ask for more than what you have. nor ask for less than what you deserve.
but why? my reply lingered between us like an afterthought.
why ask when you could have more? the clink of china, the unsteady stirring irritates me with her ungraceful, jerking movements. Bug-Eye relaxes. silence. the grove is clear.

she turns the cup in her hands, once, twice, thrice; her spindly fingers tracing the grooves of a world not yet explored. her eyes watch me closely. all five hundred of them. i turn away
to watch how the koi fish do not swim through the water, but
become stagnant in a place the water feels best.
we kneel on the grass, sipping the green tea as quietly as one can. that is all i am left with.

perhaps this is the reason why i do not ask for more;
nor deserve any less, because
we simply are given with all that we need.
copyrighted, poemsbyjewel (2025).
Sticky summer evening,
Warm, young, beautiful.
Flitting throughout the night,
Bountiful bundles of fireflies.
Flickering in the breezes,
A soft golden mist.
New summer's evening,
Graced by the lightning bugs.
The Eire canal in Pittsford is home to many lightning bugs.
Lizzie Bevis Jan 30
This morning brings another count
of ailments that have attacked me,
as viral matter drifts unseen in the air
impossible to keep track of.

The mirror shows my tired face,
so pale and paper-thin,
while symptoms wear my body down
and make my poor head spin.

I am too weary now to catalogue
each ache, each pain, each sigh;
The simple truth is all that's left
and I'm barely getting by.

This not-so-wonderful existence
drags its feet along,
my routine is all out of tune,
as I snuffle a half-forgotten song.

I'm death warmed over, so they say
though warmth feels far away,
as I shiver through the unbearable hours
of yet another long and miserable day.

©️Lizzie Bevis
I started writing this a week ago when I was unwell with the flu.
I spent today fine-tuning it and I think that it is good enough to share...but I'll keep my germs to myself!

I'm beginning to feel much better :)
Francie Lynch Oct 2023
Zombies are waddling toward their door.
Witches are cackling, black cats are scratching,
And the ghouls want brains and more.

But Brig and Ophelia aren’t scared yet,
They’re waiting inside,
Gobbling strange snacks while they hide.

It’s bugs they like to chew and gnaw;
And they love to eat their spiders raw,
Not fried with onions, like Granda;
Or served with broccoli, like Nana.

Not boiled with worms and creepy crawlers.
Ciaran eats those,
Not these crazed daughters.

Ophelia and Brig
Eat them raw,
Alive, not dead,
With wiggly legs and sharp jaws;
And wrapped up with mosquito heads
In white sticky spider webs.

They eat Black Widows soaked in goblin blood
And wicked witch’s poo;
Made from bats and rats and unschooled fools,
That witches eat to soften  stools.

They eat fat spiders
Floating in soup,
That slide and wiggle
Down their throat.

They eat them with their mouldy cheese,
Melted over wasps and bees.

The girls fork down spider stew,
They love the taste “Tres beaucoup.”

The gravy’s made from a mummy’s spit,
And sweat that drips from a ghoul’s armpit.

They like their spiders spread on bread,
A feast to feed the risen dead.

When their snack is finally done,
They’ll pick their teeth and scrape their tongues
For Daddy Long Legs they didn’t eat.
The long legs caught between their teeth.

They'll use those legs to weave a wreath,
To trick flies and bugs and lonely spiders
Into their hungry House of Horrors.
Wrote this for my twin grandaughters, Brig and Ophelia. Ciaran is my grandson. The girls hate spiders. Probably moreso now.
Thomas W Case Oct 2023
I hate these
******* gnats.
My apartment is
clean, not
sterile, but it's
where the heart is.
The floor is
swept, the dishes
are done, but these
******* gnats bother
me constantly.
I clap my
hands together,
occasionally killing
one or two, and then
I'm grateful that
God doesn't do that
to me.

I'm trying to
write, and these tiny
flying buzzards won't
leave me alone.
Then, a moth
bombards me,
fluttering around my
head and ears,
and I think,
what's than son of
a ***** going to
do to my Irish
whaling sweater?
It's 50% wool, 70 bucks.
I **** it.
Dusty *******.
I feel gratitude that
God doesn't do
that to me.

Don't these flying bugs
die when it gets cold?
I open a window.
Late October, maybe
there hasn't been a
frost yet.
I **** a gnat.
Perhaps I'd be
safer outside.
I need to do
some research.
marshay lewis Sep 2023
Where are the ants trying to go?

The ones littering my bedroom floor

Skittering in crevices unwanted

Finding their way to my skin

What do they want with the scars and marks

Sinew and dirt tainting the surface

Unfit for habitation

Nowhere to go

Nowhere to cling to

To sink and burrow and build

My body is not a home for you

Any more than it is a home for me

Your little bodies traverse the surface

Like hands and fingers never have

I itch with your touch

Sting with your bite

And you choose to stay

In a way no one ever has

Unrelenting

Unceasing

Unsavoured
monique ezeh Jun 2023
days crawl by
and humidity stills the air.
the black flies are late this season,
though around here, most things are.
below the gnat line, girls like me
seldom get to die easily,
perfumed powders
masking the scent of illness,
flushed cheeks and damp foreheads donned
as our feeble bodies recline on fainting couches
to delicately languish away. we know that
there’s a certain beauty to decomposition,
to fungus gnats invading potted soil,
to fruit flies nesting in sink drains. we know that
rotting is a clock that never stops,
tallying each unflinching, humid second while the
days crawl by.
a fly, bloated, buzzes
trapped between the window and the curtain

i hear it bump against the glass
the wings crumple
the fly falls
landing unceremoniously on the windowsill

after a moment, the fly is once again airborne
returning to the window
to continue its exercise in futility
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