Spiders Weaving as I Dream

GiaB prompt #15 illumination

I might be awake.

Except for the spiders, weaving nests for the dead

So closely to my hair, as it dangles down, reflecting the gleam of the lamp

That horrendously shocking lamp — a long stretch of dichotomous light, attracting and revolting.

The eeriest of lamps, bringing pain to each of my senses it enflames the airways of my nostrils, disorients my extrasensory perception.

And it gleams off my rest, flaring a signal to the spiders And mirroring their thread, which rips and rots at the breath of a wind

And the spiders prey on strays, finding a way onto my scalp.

Mere seconds — and countless sets of eight shuttering feet infect my skin. Mere hundreds of seconds, and the spiders’ eyes find mine. No matter that my own eyes are seeing imagination manifested.

So they scour and plan —

These spiders are not my friends.

And they pause at the creases near my closed lids Flicking at the settling waves of folded skin.

And they stick limbs into my pores, then proceed to my eyelashes, — as appealing as dragline silk — and nibble at the ends.

Spiders.

Gnawing at dozens of spiders’ legs until they find the root, and then the mouths of the caves

And they follow the gleam of fire, and lay eggs on the whites of my eyes Until my mouths open, and the wide black turns into pinpricks, shrinking.

And my eyes suddenly feel the rocks, stuck into the gel that protects me And I squeeze out water, flooding the spiders’ plans

But my eyes squirm from the light Coming from that lamp.

That damn stretch of fake sunlight which burns and blurs my vision

That lamp

which dries my pores

and singes my eyelashes

and turns the white of my eyes to black

Ever shrinking.

~ A poem written by Chloe Paulina Hawes

I submitted this poem as an unofficial entry to Genius in a Bottle’s (“GiaB”) latest writing prompt on the theme of “illumination”. I thought it so odd, or synchronistic, that I had already planned on submitting this poem before GiaB released prompt # 15. A perfect match. In the end, though I tried to shorten it, Spiders Weaving as I Dream still contained too many lines. Fate dictated I rearrange this poem to its original form, anyway. Thus, the unofficial submission. Thank you, Victor Sarkin and Jay Squires for your awesomeness. I invite Susannah MacKinnie, kurt gasbarra, Julia E Hubbel, Nasia Tarn, Lori Lamothe, Somsubhra Banerjee, Amy Knight, Connie Song, Carolyn Hastings, and William J Spirdione to participate in this challenge, exploring the duality of light and dark. The official prompt guidelines are in the link below, and each of you are great writers, so give it a shot!