a poem i am sure everyone has seen but i’m still going to share anyway
as well as this other poem inspired by giovanni’s
and this beautiful tweet
[id: a photo of a small green spider sitting on a web. Below them is the text: “i’m sorry for scaring you but i didn’t know being seen would cost me my life”]/id.
[id: the poem Allowables by Nikki Giovanni:
I killed a spider Not a murderous brown recluse Nor even a black widow. And if the truth were told this Was only a small Sort of papery spider Who should have run When I picked up the book But she didn’t And she scared me And I smashed her
I don’t think I’m allowed
To kill something
Because I am
Frightened]/end id.
[id: The poem “Mercy: after Nikki Giovanni”:
She asks me to kill the spider. Instead, I get the most peaceful weapons I can find.
I take a cup and a napkin. I catch the spider, put it outside and allow it to walk away.
If I am ever caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, just being alive and not bothering anyone,
I hope I am greeted with the same kind of mercy.
-Rudy Francisco]/end id.
[id: tweet by Kayla Ancrum ✨ ICARUS coming Winte… (@KaylaAncrum) from 2022-12-07: “I had a dream that I was commissioned to write a poem from a bug to a god, and I do not remember any of the poem except for the last line which was: I pray nobody kills me for the crime of being small.”]/end id.
