Meditations on Insect Life

after the nest of spiderlings in my 
underwear i always shake my clothes
before putting them on. i had to throw out 
another batch of rice last night 
crawling with weevils. when i bit 
into my banana this morning 
there were maggots, squirming.   
i think about how at five i cried 
when i stepped on a snail 
and my mother told me that no,  
its shell could not fix itself. 
how, at thirteen i declared 
that i had achieved enlightenment - 
the trick was to know we led  
mayfly lives - so now to live  
without attachment. my buddhist 
mother was amused. i would 
swallow my food without tasting, 
walked away whenever i gazed 
at the florists with their perfume 
of fresh sap and chilled leaves. 
every form of enjoyment was 
a tether to a world i did not want 
and would learn to live without. 
did ants see the unseeing feet? 
they drag the bodies of their  
dead away without any kind
of mourning. is it character development
or regression if i am afraid all the time 
now? what does it mean  
that at twenty-six i can cleave  
the head of a caterpillar 
while cutting corn  
without breaking down?  
and yet somehow, i 
still cannot bring myself  
to slam a palm on the nesting  
spiders i keep finding in 
my room no matter how small,  
how frail, they look  
as they scuttle away.

***

Natalie Wang is more likely to play video games or write novel-length fanfictions than write poetry, but still insists on calling herself a poet. She is based in Singapore and has been published in The Fairy Tale Review, Cartridge Lit, and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, amongst others. Her book The Woman Who Turned Into A Vending Machine is a collection of poems on metamorphosis, myth, and womanhood. You can find her at https://www.nataliewang.me/