The Praying Mantis
I only ever want things I can’t or shouldn’t have.
I fixate and obsess and then when I have total license to do what I want when I want, and with whoever I want I see the object of my former obsessions and I am left cold. Why is that? Am I so broken that I can’t ever allow myself to need what’s right in front of me? There is temptation there, but not my past infatuation; now I consider the praying mantis who tears the heads from her mates when she is through with them, sometimes before. I would say I wonder if I could be like her except that I suppose ‘wonder’ is the wrong word. I know I could be like her, or I think I know, I only wonder if I want to. Why? I don’t know, am I so ultimately self-destructive that in order to preserve myself I must externalize my masochistic impulses and become instead sadistic?
I want to say that I will not become the praying mantis or the black widow, I will not allow myself to be like the low insects and arachnids who do not bond or love and just destroy, but there is a part of me who wants to, a part of me who wants to take my private chaos and turn it outward on the world, to punish those who try to love or even want me without understanding the dark and chilly recesses of my secret heart.