They are coming. The airborne winged bevy, the flock, the herd, the horde. Their hideous skin-wings, the revolting ***** of sinew. The cerci come for me, when I try to retire. My torpor perpetually interrupted, never completed. I have not slept in days.

The wicga want to lay their young in me. I’ve seen them do it! To the others!

The ****** spine-tailed hell spawn. I cannot sleep. I want to sleep. They will burrow in my flesh if I do not run. I need to run. I must run.

I hear the clouds, the living far-off black mist. I am warned by their distant revving, their humming. Warming their wings off in the distance. The far-off burn-up, thousands working as one. They are coming. They will find me.

Every night I am conscious at dusk; twilight sentience. I am chased every night until first light.

The swarm; my body their incubator. I am forced. I will sustain their young. The nymphs, the pupae. The larvae.

Ectoparisitoids.

I can hear them. Closer. I run.

Run, trip, run, Run. Run.

Run through this disgusting and hideous rotten silva.

Light fading.

The dark is here now. Murk, gloom, pestilence. This place; iniquity incarnate.

The miasma of decomposition.

The fetor.

This rotting place.

They are closer. The swarm. I do not want their brood!

I trip again. My ankle twists and shatters.

I drag myself, through the slime and decay.

I feel the stings. I am seized.

The burning. The buzzing. The biting.

The paralysis begins at my feet. Creeping through my legs, hips, and torso. I cannot move.

I feel new stings. Eggs injected now. Hundreds.

Pennate *******.

I feel them give me life. Their life. They fill my body with their offspring. My flesh will sustain their young.

Where the ectozoons will grow, consume. My body, a living nursery.

I shut my eyes tight. They force open my lids, many mandibles prying.

I feel the stings. I see them chewing. Everything blurs. I see them crawl in. They push through. They enter my oculi. I feel them fill to burst, their eggs many.

My world goes black.


= = = =


I awake. I feel the warmth of them all. The children in my derma. Hundreds.

Oviparity is nearly complete.

I can barely move, my dermis husked with them all. The young.
I feel my face. The sockets where my eyes used to be, a rind covering both. A stringy membrane tightly seals the unborn. I cannot see. My world is black.

I lie there trying to count, trying to fathom the number of nearly born within me. The many bumps and blisters covering me whole. Every orifice filled with oothecae.

Then I feel. I feel them kick, I feel them poke.

Birth!

I feel my belly split open with life.

They ooze out. My ears begin ringing with their pitter patter. Echoing. Thousands. My skin crawls. Pores sweat the fetid embryonic sap of life. Their life.

They wriggle and wiggle out; hundreds.

Every inch of my body bursts with birth.

My eyes hatch last. The pods split. I feel them. I help birth the spiked young, I pull them from the embryonic mephitic discharge.

The many legged, my anatomy their first meal.

My babies. My children. Eat ‘till you are strong.

My body is your communion.

Survival of one wreath speck table insect,
(poll ease pod din me Elmer Fudd speak)
thus earning hardy laurels
nsync with inxs of standing kudos
ranking as bajillion year old species
scientific name: Periplaneta americana
(Linnaeus)  Insecta: Blattodea: Blattidae)
throve for more than 300 million years,
not surprisingly they constitute
one of the oldest groups of insects on the earth.

Longevity of twittering, skittering,
and buzzfeeding critters survival
witnessed their collective essence being gifted
with best in class adaptation techniques
particularly with debut appearance of naked ape
slowly evolving into modern (wo)man,
(after God - somewhat cagily
took a rib from Adam),
who when not resembling a rolling stone,
nor asking sympathy for the devil
furiously drove beasts of burden
into dire straits down to the waterline.

Much as yours truly feels squeamish
about the the humble cockroach,
(who most likely piggybacked as stowaway
courtesy unbeknownst to people
and hitched a ride across
all four corners
of the webbed wide world
essentially becoming globetrotters),
I chose said topic to broach
as an object lesson how one creature

namely aforementioned adaptable
creepy crawly creature
made themselves quite at home
raiding the pantries and refrigerators
across wide stratification
of income earners,
not exclusively the purview
solely nor singularly
circumscribed and described
by under-resourced people
most often found

living and reproducing
in cluttered city streets, parks,
subway tunnels, and sewer systems—
as well as inside houses
and ramshackle buildings
frequently woebegone tenements
not strictly linkedin
with Norwegian bachelor farmers
but also make cameo appearances
inside the coiffed hair of trumpeting dons
subsequently hobnobbing with glitterati.

German cockroaches are known for their prolific reproduction, with a female capable of producing up to 4 to 6 egg cases (oothecae) in her lifetime, each containing around 30 to 40 eggs. Under optimal conditions, they can go from egg to reproductive adult in as little as 100 days.

Cockroaches prefer dark places because they are nocturnal, so you will barely see them during the day. Hence, you will see them scuttle to hide when you turn on the basement or bathroom lights.

Thus yours truly attests
to become easily spooked
out of his skin,
and prone to utter bejesus
then subsequently and immediately
apt to swoon into a heap
of lovely bones
after espying a fast moving dark shape(s)
videre licet pronouncing exaggerated silhouette
cast courtesy moon shadow
outsize profile shimmying and shaking
across the outer limits of the twilight zone
delineated by structures of silence.

Imagine dragons exudation regarding fiery breath,
which scary scene would not faze me in the least,
cuz I would whip out my handy dandy blue's clues
and extinguish flaming forks courtesy water hose.