mantis

is this what you prayed for?

The mantis: a symbol of good luck, protection, patience… stillness, peace and precision.

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Mantis, 
your celadon light
seeps through the blinds
and spills into 
all four corners 
of my room. You linger. 

It’s not as if you weren’t invited,
in fact, 
I know I carried you here with me,
on my sails to bluer seas, 
unwillingly. 
I brought you along 
in ungiven gifts
and dog-eared pages
and tear smeared journal entries I wrote.

Always politely fading into verdesse,
you balance the here 
and there,
you nimble mantis,
praying.

What do you pray for?
You are praying for 
the almosts and the maybes
to prevent unwanted certainties. 

I know you hate these walls,
the earthly ones you have imagined me in,
the ones you so desperately wish
to not confine 
your otherworldly self to, and yet,
you linger. 

Mantis, I must ask you, 
was I ever enough 
for your doctrine? 
Is the reason you pray so,
to keep me at arms length,
to pray so long and so devout,
that you cannot muster
a single moment to answer my shivering,
to answer my tears? 
Your silent abandon 
haunts me,
your lucky glisten
blinds me.

Great mantis, much like you,
I am praying now.
I fold my hands together 
to keep my hopes 
from slipping out of them. 

How does a human girl pray,
and what does she pray for, mantis?
Well—
I fold my hands together
like you do,
I close my eyelids shut 
like nuns do,
I hold my head down
like churchgoers do. 
And then, I pray 
for your scars of unraveling
and unbecoming
and unloving
to someday 
fade away.