They appear out of nowhere.
Like thoughts sometimes do.
They fly around my kitchen
and become an irritant I must live with
that spreads from room to room.
They land on windows, walls, and mirrors,
on the glass in picture frames,
on the cupboard doors.
Perhaps it’s the fruit that’s turned
or the unemptied compost that has them
so suddenly and prodigiously appear.
Sometimes I think
the sink, the drain…
the pipes and the plumbing,
the building’s dark inner workings,
that wind behind the walls unseen,
are the source.
Yes, this is where the gnats
must come from, I think.
From a place like this.
I can lose hours in a day,
in a week, over weeks,
running around my small apartment
swatting at them,
working myself into a frenzy,
like an animal in a cage,
especially when I swing and miss.
They are almost invisible
and yet they are my enemy
–like thoughts are sometimes–
and I want to crush them,
because they are everywhere:
a buzzing so close to my ears.
I want to annihilate them.
Such a big word for such little threats.
But the gusto with which I go after them
is fueled by a ferocity no other word can carry.
I want to be a killer.
A speck of blood on the mirror …
is the victory I am after.
Or so I think.
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