A metropolis of bugs

A metropolis of bugs

i can’t see from my balcony where i

hide and tried to inhale the sky but my

lungs were clogged with flowers i collected

from the graveyard. i’m a crematorium

for poetry: broken dead phrases

burning on a wind we’ve paused.

some i choose to revive and

wouldn’t it be tough to be a bug?

paper smells like Christmas to me.

what does it smell like to you?

did you choose to be here? did our parents

choose us to be their bugs?

building walls is the same as building

darkness. don’t you see? i breathe wind

from my balcony over the sea: bleeding

streams drown me: the bug i am, we are, you see.

A collaboration between Svetlana Sterlin (poem) and Bloom by Shan (art).