She never wanted to hurt you
(but she might have).
These petals are stuck unfalling—
she is to blame. She
stops time. She
is the ender of ends.
maybe
there's
another
way.
she weaves a web — but we can trap her.
let's put her in a story, have her play a character
(or put her in a mirror —
have her play the reflection).
She will be harmless.
We'll have her stand on two legs
and pretend her forelimbs are arms
and snap the middle ones off at the joint.
We'll teach her how to speak
and she won't hurt us anymore.
But then
she wouldn't be
a spider.
So the spider dies
and we'll feel that grief
and we'll dream of mice
and we'll wish for better solutions than violence
and we'll speak of nails turned to swords
and we'll write of rats fighting gods.
and we'll write of loneliness
and we'll speak of tragedy
and we'll wish she had been better
and we'll dream we had been kinder
and we'll feel that grief
because now our world is one less.
But no!
The spider is still here.
We captured her.
She's not dead.
There is a spider in the jar.
There is a spider in the jar.
She could kill you.
Do something.
There is a spider in the jar.
We send her through the mirror
and down the rabbithole: she will live a falsehood
but she will live after all. We will show her magnitudes
and fulfill her life in rapidity, making up for time:
books, movies, plays, great works of art and science
all of it. We will enlighten her and show her the error of her ways.
We—
…but she is just a spider. This will change nothing. She was born this way.
She cannot be made kinder because her existence is one which weakens ours.
We will bury her in petals.
We will write of her nature.
We will make enemies of her siblings
and make friends of her cousins to repair the damage.
We will spiral down moral quandries
Then take the next day feeling nothing at all.
One cannot help their nature.
The only thing we can do is remember.
Written as the alternative yuletide gift poem for zipzipskins to be used in collaboration with crossing. A sequel to Until I See Guts.