I've been under the influence
Of a grand delusion for years:
That humanity was in need of saving,
That I could do something to change things.
But the vast, sanguineous swamp of civilization
Swallows you whole,
Indiscriminately forcing you to adapt.
Ripping your flesh from the bone,
Until you are a twisted phantom
Of who you once were.

The ants,
Though,
They work together.
Their colonies are, essentially,
A single organism:
An immune system of warriors with grotesque chelicerae,
With foragers and scavengers radiating from the colony's center,
Bringing back sustenance,
And the queen, ceaselessly pumping out generations.
They all live and work and die seamlessly:
Cogs upon cogs, organic machinery.
So what am I?
A blockage in an artery?
An aimless foreign object,
Doomed to be consumed by everything around me?

I don't know.
I wake up and I put my contacts in.
It's usually past noon,
And some days I can't get out of bed.
Don't ask me why.
But I go to class and I take care of things
I'm trying to at least be mobile,
To have options and use them.
I've got a wanderer's spirit
And a saint's moral code.
Why must so many go without? I ask.
Why do we cause so many of our own problems?

Again, I don't know.
We're naïve, hairless apes with nuclear weapons,
Cosmological Protozoa at best.
Our cities are staunchly divided:
The haves and have nots,
The grime and the detergent.
The ghetto is potholes, shattered glass, And faded, forgotten dreams.
This is not the succinct society I see in ants;
This is chaos, disorder, malignant and cancerous.
This is ecological genocide.
This is systematic exploitation and manipulation.
This is rigged elections and clandestine empires.
This is **** Sapiens circa 21st century,
And I want nothing of it.

here i am sat in the windowsill
of a person's office while they're working

if i am slow enough, and quiet enough
maybe i will be able to get by
but i am so lost and they look so intelligent
i want to ask them for directions back outside.

the tree in the window, a foul reminder of where i was before
all this happened.
i stare at it, and it stares back at me with a strange sense of distant
sympathy, the tree.

the human at their wooden desk
with machines whirring and fans spinning
takes notice of me here.

and oh, my woes,
i shall spill them on this windowsill
and lament for a life short lived.
these days, a spider is no short of 8 steps toward death
after seconds of being born.

but i am old, and i have lived
a great three months of my life.
somewhere between half or a quarter of my lifespan.
middle age has been kind to me, i am plump and i am intelligent.

my webs will serve as a story for the others to see
a warning for them to read that this human is
like the others i have heard of,
cruel.

but, they stand up, and they speak to me.
they call me friendly. they inspect me.
i feel rather embarrassed, so i try to hide behind the blinds
but the human opens them, and their big eyes peer into all eight of mine.
i try to escape but i'm frozen to the windowsill.
"this is it", i begin to say my final speech. my family is somewhere outside, resting, while i am face to face with death.

and the human stares at me, and speaks to me
like the giant furry thing with three legs that they called 'cat',
and for a moment that at first felt fleeting, and soon became a warmth, i felt... loved.

"friendly little intruder! you shouldn't be here, you'll starve."
they say with their sing-songy voice.
they skitter out, much like i move myself in the windowsill.
i try to find a means to hide, or a bug to eat. a place to make a web, and hope that i am scary enough for them to leave me alone.

but they return, and they place a dome over my head.
at first, i am fearful. they are so much bigger than i,
and i have heard the stories.
but, the shoe that they had brought sits idly. it is not an expectation, but a last resort.
and i peer into the dome, and see caring, gentle eyes distorted through plastic peering back at me.
a smile on their face, a shaking to their breath.
we're both scared, but for different reasons.

i want to ask them: why? why do you help me and why are you scared? i cannot hurt you.
they whisper that they don't want to hurt /me/.

and then it all feels so fleeting, from that point on.
i watch their nurturing gaze through the lens, before it is lifted above my head.
this time, i freeze, but not out of fear. we are working together to go back outside.

i am introduced to a small plastic wrapper of something too big and too foreign for me to understand,
but, what i did understand, is that there is my way out of this windowsill.
so i crawl on it, and the human puts me in their little plastic dome
a lid with freshly pierced holes for breathing comes down over it, trapping me inside for my brief ride to the outdoors.

when the big front door opens,
i wonder if i could show my gratitude.
so i linger a while, and i stare at the human who stares back at me with a patient smile.
i wiggle my my chelicerae, cleaning them with my fangs to show content.
the human recognizes it.

i have never felt safer, in these few seconds, than with this human and this mystery plastic out on the concrete of their porch.
"you will have a much easier, and better time out here, little spider friend!" they beam, and i cannot help but hesitate going home.

because what is one more day and night in the windowsill
of a friendly human and their plastic domes, and cheerful eyes?
there is no harm in staying, when they will not **** me.
so i think i will invite my friends, next time.

i have watched my friend tripping over honey traps,
leaving little pieces of himself stuck to every sticky step
as he continues forth into cobweb arms
where a venomous spider awaits, chelicerae poised to snap and bite.

my friend is smart and good and if there are gods in the sky
i will pray for the first time in years
that they lead him AWAY from that seductive silk
and into safer satin.

if there's on thing i know, it is this: he does not deserve
to fall victim to YOU and your lies, you and your wicked smile.
you've woven so many whoppers, your web is bigger than the internet
that you use to draw him in.
stop drawing him in.
he is the artist; not you.

i wish i could say that my friend is like a wasp, that he could
sting and escape and fly away to fairer flowers
instead of you: wilting rose, thorny and brittle and grown from ****.
but my friend is instead more akin to a bee,

helpful and soft, endangered; he would suffer more harm
if i could tell him why he needs to sting you
and i will not be known as the man who aided the death
of such a beautiful being
with such a bright and buzzing brain.