“mantodea”

last night i thought of what i should’ve said and it’s already escaped me again but i think it had something to do with how dragonflies dance. how much i hate bugs and flying things and yet continuously put myself into situations where i’ll be stung and fall. and when, again, tonight turned into last night and that turned into this morning i was still awake. how insomniacs thrive when they can reason sleep away with art. how i was still awake and i remembered a dream from when i was 8 and leaning from my bedroom window into the spring of summer and praying mantises ate my elbows. a little grotesque, i know. for the longest time i thought that dream is what fueled my fear of insects but thinking of it now i think it’s what fuels my fear of prayer. how it never works because it’s not like we’re going to change God’s mind anyway. as if things aren’t going to happen when they’re going to, how they’re going to. as if we aren’t bugs. how associating a creature that disgusts me with hands clasped and heart trusting is repressible. how many things i wish were repressible. how i pity the bug. how i envy it. sometimes i think about the significance of using a little ‘g’ when i talk about him but then how i always go back and capitalize Him because i’m still trying to un-sin myself. i heard on a television show a fictional therapist say that guilt is the feeling of doing something wrong and shame is the feeling of being something wrong and the fine line between the two is the space between my eyes when i keep them open and see everyone else’s closed. how shame sits comfortably when it feels at home. i’m trying to write my way out of damnation. as if there’s such a place. sometimes i think about how i’m so afraid. but i want to see a dragonfly someday and i want to be a dragonfly one day so i can dance, too. so someone can watch me and not be afraid. but more, i want to be a praying mantis. i want to be a praying mantis. sometimes i think about the one piece of advice i’d tell my 8 year old self and it’s the same thing i’m telling myself now.