Monday, August 15, 2022

Best of All Possible Worlds


 

by Brett Rutherford

Doctor, I'm glad
you had time to squeeze me in.
No, nothing physical.
My limbs are all intact.

I am far past
adolescence
as you can see:
segment after segment,
a full hundred.

Sex life? Oh that's
no problem.
Here under the carpet
the living's easy.
Food falls, and fluids
ooze to puddled ponds
where there's enough
for everyone.
The human never vacuums.
We party all night,
and as for sex,
God! I've lost count.

It must be my mind
that's gone all wrong
on me. I just go through
the motions of eating,
wrestling with my brothers,
topping the others
in the orgy crevices.

They say you help,
that on this couch
I can talk it through.
I can hardly say it,
what troubles me.

I sleep, too long,
and far too deep,
and in my dreams
I am pursued
by thousand-legged
monsters. Yes,
millipedes! There,
I have said it.

They seem so real,
I wake up screaming.
I know there is no
such animal.
Mythology, I know.
Old fairy tales.

Tell me, doctor,
what is a centipede to do?

 

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