[190 words]
bugs will spill from you in such number,
one could imagine water in their place.
when you feel the knocking (knock knock)
on your ribs, your lungs, your heart,
(knock knock) you can try to convince yourself that there is a heart under the floorboards.
this, of course, is a pointless endeavor.
the only dead thing here is you.
when you ask yourself what’s real at all,
you find the answer to be the bugs.
the bugs thrumming through you,
pursuing percussion,
playing your nerves like harp strings.
you are but an old house to be consumed.
(knock knock) you are made holy,
and not in the way you had always dreamed.
you are made holy: permeable, full of holes and faults.
your most delicate parts are swarmed and covered.
there is a darkness you feel upon your heart, and it is only the shadow they cast.
the chitter and the flap of wings would serve as a lullaby,
if your lights ever dimmed
and your head ever hit the pillow.
knock knock.
knock knock.
you shake and writhe.
you jitter and ache.
nothing more than a pile of bugs.
Maddie Solomon is a poet from metro Colorado. She fell in love with poetry at the age of eight, and she’s been writing ever since. She’s only previously been published in her high school’s literary magazine, if that even counts.
