Of Man And Roach by Laura Marie Clark

By Raja's Insight on July 2, 2018 • ( 1 )

A cockroach crawls across the floor

Twitching this way and that,

Avoiding the movements of my shadow;

I trap him beneath a cup

And watch him spin around in circles

Trying to discover a way out

Of his prison. I stand and note in triumph

That there is no escape for him.

Where he is trapped is physical;

For me, fate is not so kind.

In my head, the glass is there, unwilling to

Move when I place my hands

Against it and push, for I have become a

Prisoner of my own thoughts

And must now retreat to a place where I

Can try to wear the glass thin.

I tower over this cockroach, mighty in

My physical presence, but no more:

He has no reason to become a sunken,

Nervous wreck despite his cage;

But me, though I once beat the discontentment

Down to a pulp, can feel it rise

Once more into the forefront of my mind

Where it threatens to remain.

As I move the glass and crush him with my foot,

I see myself crushed alongside him;

How strange that such a pest can remind me

Of my personal vulnerabilities.

Inside, I have a broken body too, which has

Crawled across the ground, in failed

Attempts to turn myself into a strong woman again.

And as he dies, in part so do I.

Excerpt from the book City Of The World

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About the Author

Laura is a writer and blogger near Lincoln, England. She is the author of City of the World – a collection of poems that take the reader on an adventure living and working as a teacher in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to explore the highs and lows of life as an expat.

Visit Author Page At: www.ctupublishinggroup.com/laura-marie-clark.html