By Annabelle Kennedy, TIWP Student

I built a web inside your house. 
Where, exactly, I don’t know. 
On the wall, maybe, of the pantry 
Just behind the anise seed
And next to the dried thyme
Or maybe above the lamp outside 
Just beyond the porch 
Stringing strands of silk between the eves.
I was a guest in your house 
For a long time.
Or maybe I was here before you
But you didn’t see it that way. 
I know I look different 
Than what you expected 
With my eight eyes, eight legs, 
And penchant for terror.
(Or at least that’s what 
You told the neighbors 
When they come over for dinner
When you thought I couldn’t hear.
I
could
hear.) 
But I ask for mercy. 
I hope you won’t be like 
Those people that kill bugs just for their friends’ eyes.
Do I have to scream 
For you to believe I shouldn’t be hurt anymore? 
Or do you think because I don’t make a sound
It doesn’t hurt at all? 
Oh, pardon me, for trying to live
In a world that sees me and thinks danger.
I don’t mean to scare you – I don’t. 
But I didn’t know that trying to make a friend 
Would cost me my safety.
I didn’t know letting myself be seen 
Would cost me my life.
I am a shunned creature 
In a lonely world
And I live on borrowed time.
But with your help, 
You who do not crush the millipede 
But release it back 
Into the scrub brush, 
You who put the spiderlings into glass jars
And set them in the plants of the front porch,
I can borrow a little more.