Carapace

Carapace

Skittering across the kitchen floor;
a Kafka dream come true.
Was it something I’d said,
or something I’d done
in a sordid past life
to be rudely made one
of the hated majority
of carapaced vermin?

I had become
just a bug on the wall
a brown spot,
un-noticed
who sees more of humans
than any would care to know;
the careless fumblings
and drunken rumblings
of two lost souls
tumbling
across a roach slept bed.

Secrets I’ve been told
when I had been so bold
to venture near breath holes
of unrepentant sinners
never bothering with confessions.
Never knowing that I
was their cardinal listener
antennae glistening
with dust from their dinners.

I remember being told
once in another life
when exo was worn
inside vibrant skin;
“Be kind to all living things.”
Murdering one would bring
swift retribution
a final solution
of heel against fragile head;
waking in Armageddon
to find all the world
was dead.

And I, the last, lone survivor
punished for things I’d said;
never the one to dread,
now a believer.