There is a dead beetle on the floor in the bathroom.
It has been there for weeks.
Someone must have noticed it but paid it no mind.
More than someone.
Someones.
No one has bothered its carcass.
Its legs are curled in at odd angles, not unlike an infant sleeping.
Someone would notice an infant sleeping.
An infant sleeping on the floor of a bathroom.
Or an infant dead in a bathroom on the cold, grey tiles.

The color of its dark body is in stark contrast to the light floor, but still it is ignored.
Have I been bright enough in this life to stand out?
Am I light against the dark?
Or dark against the light?
Will I be remembered?
As I slide through the experience of living, I don't know what impression I've made.
Am I the dead beetle?
Will I be the dead beetle?
My life has not been bold.
One may only presume the same of the beetle.
There are too many people in this world for me to be a true stand-out.
I merely exist.
No matter my color against the background of life, I am simply waiting to be swept away.
As inconsequential as a dead beetle in the bathroom with little attention paid.

There is a saying that everyone dies twice.
First when you leave the mortal realm.
The second time when your name is last spoken and your memory ceases to exist amongst the living.
What if you never live and are paid no mind.
Can you really die then?
What if I am not even the beetle?
What if I'm less than a drop in the bucket in the universe and I slip through the cracks of society?
At least the beetle gets a poem.

Behold, I emerge from my slumber,
ready for the fluttering touch of another.
Who shall dance to the death with me?
Who shall fall in their peak to the voyeuristic sea,
and tuck themselves in 'neath the slobbering tongues
of the little fishies starving for the tastes of the young
that I gave my life to create.
They'll never get a chance to appreciate
all that I've sacrificed for the cause.
The world carries on, no grief and no pause.
All in a day's work, no thanks for the mother
who lives just to die for the meeting of another.

Lovlee ladeebug, ye'll nae be flien hame,
Ye're a fine wee red beedel
Tha nipp'd me fleshee arm.
Ye've nae hame afire,
Ye've nae wee ones alane;
Ye bit me lovelee ladeebug,
'nd ye'll nae be flien hame.

today i felt like laying down
and sleeping soundly in the ground

i'd decompose with all the bugs
that died from overdose on drugs

my hips would grind against boney narcs
like pornstars and pervs in a public park

yes, i'd like to be six feet under
singing with drug-induced wonder

i was an insect
on a divine windshield
a speck of dust
on an otherwise stainless garb
when wiper blades swept me down
in my infancy
a young brood
i am guts
i am blood
i am gross things