Spiders

Shannon Frost Greenstein

A labyrinth of legs, byzantine limbs evolving
mercilessly
in real time
to capture to maim to injure to murder to paralyze
to suck dry and desiccate and kill;
malice, venom, motive.  

Eyes—too many eyes. Fangs and poison and even fucking fur
sometimes.
Those furry bastards are the worst.  

I feel them like memories drifting over my
skin.
My lizard brain seizes;
fight, flight, freeze, fold, fawn.  

I haven’t been in my basement in years.

They crawl
creep
jump straight in the fucking air
like a rocket like a spring like an angel like a shuttle launch like a Deity
like nothing that is natural.
Because spiders weren’t terrifying enough
before they started jumping. 

Don’t even get me started
on the radioactive ones.  

Spiders in my hair
under my shirt down my sleeve against my ankle up my leg on my fingers next to my ribs
and apparently in my fucking mouth when I sleep.

Always the stress
relentless
constant cortisol
soaking my limbic system like Katrina’s water over the levees
and I’m afraid all the fucking time because
once 

there was this spider on me.

Shannon Frost Greenstein is the author of “Pray for Us Sinners”, a fiction collection from Alien Buddha Press, and “More.”, a poetry collection by Wild Pressed Books. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy. Follow her at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre.