Poetry | Journal

A meal worm crawled through my ear.
is making pathways between brain folds,
these little buggers become beetles
not unlike a cockroach, equally upsetting
to find in anything you trust
like a dinner with friends ruined by the writhing
or a suspect kitchen, how many are in the walls
for one to be spotted in the open
ballsey little vermin.
This one in my head
left a trail, the ear, I can still feel
tickling hairs raising one by one
he is in there deep and I am
grabbing tweezers to dig out.
The sight of crawly bugs doesn’t frighten me,
spiders are welcome in my home,
I often name them and give thanks
for keeping out invasive ants
and easily startled stink bugs
this meal worm is just disgusting, a larval
stunted from adulthood, a spineless
parasite that could only be useful to science
to study manipulation
by cutting it open we could maybe understand
what wild bacteria make up this tiny monstrosity,
for any of it to be possible
for anyone to find it palatable
gives me chills.
So best to discard this to the trash, again.
Spend a few hours in meditation
to clear up the stress its threat set in
and massage the brain folds
back into a calm arrangement
a clean environment free from pests.
This is not the first time a foul creature disturbed my solace,
The difference now is I won’t let it last.