Spider

In my canoe of floral sheets
And comforters that explode in blue blossoms
I am eating away at the time of night for sleeping,
For being consumed in crackling dreams
That I will forget upon waking.
But I do sleep
And I do burn with the electricity of
Forsaken, hidden lives I will never
be allowed to cling to.

And when I wake,
the sea of my bedroom blurs into focus.
The first thing my eyes meet is a spider
suspended from the bookshelf
just inches from my face.
It’s the color of my own skin,
so fragile it’s nearly see-through.
It just hangs, it floats and swings,
its legs loosely curled around its body.
Maybe it sleeps.
Maybe it dreams and forgets.

I pick up my notebook
and with a sharp thrust
I kill it anyway.

I drop back to my pillow
Buried under the weight of dreams
I’ll never know again.
I never wanted to be like the rest of the world.
I never wanted to kill the things
I was afraid of.

more by NOELLE CURRIE

Photograph by Matthias Rhomberg