Bug Stopped

This poem is based on an incident early this morning way b4 the world was awake. it was an hour of total desolation where man meets bug. it was a painful excruciatingly slow death, but man prevailed and woman wrote about it, jen

A Bug Has Stopped On My Kitchen Floor

I found you flipped over, your six arms waving wildly 

for help, on a deserted island. I didn’t want you 

and your deserted island turning up in the middle of 

the kitchen floor of my life. Like the deserted parking 

lot that used to be my carefree childhood. You moved in 

and brought the weeds and the carefree children 

fell and cut their knees. I don’t need your desert island, I am 

trying to reclaim my carefree joy even in a deserted place. I have

my own six waving arms to still. My big giant face hovers down 

closer to yours, a face, dear bug, not a helicopter of God. I have my own 

big face hovering down closer to me in the bathroom mirror, my face, 

no helicopter. The face with eyes that imply a weapon hidden 

in a hand. Is it a prison shank or a dove of fire? Lord I am perishing for a sign, 

I am trying to save myself, praying for the something 

in my most hidden hand. I look up on my back and wave my sick six arms around, 

then I right myself with the world, there is something in my hand 

and I will kill what I must kill. Bug it’s you and me...it’s you or me. 

The world is just war and desertion, desertion and war and then you are 

so desperate you look up for a big face, for a hidden hand with whatever 

it’s got for you. I understand this bug. I am not a bug, but I am a junky. It’s 

the same thing. Heroin finally flips you over onto your back 

on your own kitchen floor, and gives you many broken arms to wave 

around. And either you get back on your feet or you stare up waiting 

for something to fall out of the sky. I know you came for some crumbs, 

crumbs of my soul, but bug there’s only one crumb left, and so I am 

keeping it and handing you down a hand me down death. Bug it doesn’t fit

me anymore. This hard crumb no bug can swallow. The hard crumb 

no one can smile. I look in the mirror, I look in the bug and do 

not swallow and do not smile. Death is not pretty. Something in my hand 

materializes, I bring it down from the sky and slice you in your belly. It’s 

like the abortion I had; life is not pretty. I am not looking forward to 

the messy process this slice has set off. Like waking up after I relapsed 

and knowing the messy process of either giving up and dying on 

your back or else getting back on your feet sober. Bug, maybe you can 

empathize, I am shedding my exoskeleton. I want to tell you to leave but in 

the heat of the moment I cannot speak so I take something outta hiding 

and communicate it with deadly precision. I think you know the fear of shedding 

your outside knowing you will die in your own shit or else get up and grow 

back. For a long time no one knew where I was, not even myself. I was 

on a desert island. I am back there again on my knees again 

dealing with you again. Bug you are not me anymore. You try 

to confuse me with six waving arms. But bug, you got the wrong 

address; I don’t live here anymore. It’s you, not me on your 

back waving your empty arms, in a bed, deserted by a long series 

of brushes with death who said they were men. The first day of sobriety is 

the first day of waking up on a desert island or the first day in jail. Cry, wail, 

bang out your song with your head against a bar, or pray, 

but whatever you do shut up and mind your own business. Bug you did 

not mind your own business. You boldly walked across my kitchen 

floor then fell over on your back and waited to make me feel bad, real bad. In jail, 

in junky-hood we are numbers, we are statistics. I got your number. I was 

your number. I write your number into your own body, your own 

medicine. The first number is a slice down the middle. You say, it’s not 

enough, you wave your arms for more. Many armed bug you are 

my addiction. I don’t try and understand you. I say to the bug, the addiction, I still 

love you. Bug, I am sober and you are a little crawler, a little 

darkness creeping to get back into my things all over again and give me 

the creeps. This slice down the middle seems only to have simulated 

organ failure, still you wave from your desert. But that’s not God and His 

helicopter, that’s my killer face bringing down the sky. I slice you a little 

higher up where your heart would be if you had one. I would cry 

because I feel your pain, I still got you in me.  But I lost all my tears, 

they went into the pit, each ticked a year off of my life. Tick tick tick, the pit 

is bottomless, the years blurred by as I cried. Bug you got that bottomless pit 

look in your eye. I slice you at the neck now, where it really counts. At the end 

I was shooting up dope in the neck cause I had nowhere else 

to go, the whole place was deserted. In the end I had done everything 

I said I’d never do, there was nowhere to go. At the last possible moment I got 

back on my feet. Don’t ask me how, that’s the thing hidden in my hand. It kills

and it saves at the same time. I am brought again to my knees this morning, once

again at the edge where life meets death. I am moved to the edge on 

my knees, not by God but by a little bug. I try to say, it’s just a bug, it’s just 

a kitchen floor, but I know better, I remember when I was on 

my back for ten years, getting raped pillaged gutted and burned, getting used 

to it because I wanted to stay high. I got so high, I was no bigger 

than a bug and people would look up and wonder where I was. I look 

down at you, I must look as high as the sky to you. Bug I am not high and 

I am not sky, I am just a junky who’s clean, I just hate you and love you 

and got a something hidden in my hand. Addiction, bug whoever you 

are dressed as today, I choose life. I bring down the weapon. One must die 

so the other can live. I take you off at the head. The seasick waving 

stops. I gather you up in a tissue, tears black as tar 

heroin. And the bug, the addiction is over. I get up out of 

the ashes and go on breathing and being human. A bug has stopped 

on my own kitchen floor. Will I pay for this in eternity? Lord forgive 

me; dearest bug, my one and only regret is that 

I did not get you back on your feet so I could 

kill you like a man.