insecticide 

you have to reach the nest
if you want it to stop.
last spring i was plagued 
with ants. they crawled on all the walls
of my bedroom. they sang songs
about the sweetness they wanted
to devour from my irises:
little black berries. they carried 
pieces of my childhood & dropped them
onto the floor. a guitar pick.
a watermelon rind. you have to feed them
by hand. lie to them. say,
"let's eat together." sugar & poison.
at night i would spray all the corners
with insecticide. it smelled vaguely
like lemons. still, pulled by some
other worldly force, the ants
would march & march. they'd follow
the one before them right into 
pools of death. chemicals that 
turned them inside out. they'd writhe 
& i'd tell them, "i am sorry."
but it was an empty "i am sorry"
because i did not stop. instead,
i did more. i left traps outside.
by the growing crack in the house's spine.
then, as they still came, i'd plead,
"please. i have nothing for you here.
i have barely enough for my self."
i felt my life unraveling in every possible way.
my partner turning into 
a closet & then saying, "let's be
obelisks instead." the crack 
in the house's foundation leaking
during the season's first heavy rain.
in so many ways i lived just like the ants.
i walked through poison
in search of one little bite of sugar.
"how do we stop ourselves?"
i asked them. to which they did not reply.