bugs.

way back last summer i think it was, i had several encounters with the damn things. not to say that all bugs are bad, in fact i appreciate their existence. but seriously. fuck ticks. (this is all totally irrelevant) 

i was driving home in my old suzuki, the first car i managed to destroy, from the bank. a moth landed on my rearview mirror while i was there. it stood there patiently, even while i was driving, right on until i got home. i opened the door, got out of the car and it flew away.

the next day or so later i see another bug with its legs caught in the web of the spider. it was furiously trying to escape it, but every time it tried to run away the web would cause it to flip over on its back and it just flailed around hopelessly. the spider was waiting in one of its webs, probably for it to die of exhaustion. coldly, patiently, with an instinct that would take us years of experience to figure out. i thought about the poor creature kill itself. i thought about it withering, dying, and i didn't do anything. i could free it, but only to cause someone else to starve, wither and die. two perspectives telling the same story. 

a year later i'm painting the stairs where i saw it all take place. there was the hollow remains of a bug shell where it had been, a dead spider, little clumps of dirt, and extra bits of webbing. it was all dead, a release none of them could fathom, none of them could understand. i once sat there with a notebook and cigarettes, and now i covered it all in paint.