Fireflies

You are a firefly
blinking rhythms that are as easy to predict
as the weather that encapsulates each season.
And the light at the end of your tail
as it goes streaming out of sight
is something I understand
but no longer wish to respond to.

I wave you away from mason jars
that no longer bear your name,
seal the windows shut with good intentions
block the gaps in the doorjambs with enough strength
to make me believe this will keep you out
if only so you will stop letting your cousin's frozen bodies
fill my wallpaper.

And you, keep lighting up the night sky
keep snapping your wings too loudly against the air.
Keep acting like you are something you are not.
A late to bloom june bug
fattened and lazy bumping into walls
and calling it amusing.

I never wanted to catch you.
Wasn't interested in how you would look
pinned under glass
and lightless.
Had no need for the small print of genus and phillum
underneath you.

I just wanted to know how you shine that way.
Wanted to hold you in my palm for a moment
and notice the warmth as you lit up and then faded away.
But you, kept thinking you were something you are not.
A cicada, which is often mistaken for locusts.

I knew better when I saw you
you wouldn't bring plague or ruin
but you did mistake my arms for tree limbs
and attempted to feed.

Attempted to nest in my heart valves
I got tired of fighting you off
the buzz of your wings persistent and unending
I let you love me
even though I knew we wouldn't last through the season.

I forgot that just because we both had wings
it didn't mean we were meant to fly in the same direction.
I'll admit it.

This ragged jersey moth got tired of keeping
the moon, something so large and unattainable
on my left to navigate
that I let the light bulb of your halo
send me into circles.

A slow dizzinging nose dive of sweetness
after so much forceful wind thrust in my face.
A cyclone of summers and hot nights
I spent swinging around the end of a light bulb
whose switch was constantly being flicked on and off.

And I have just enough reserve left
to remember the moon
and how it shined for me once
kissing the curve of the earth clear and steady
that I left the fireflies to burn out alone.