“Foggy Morning Tennessee Roadside” © Bonnie Matthews Brock

 

Lessons from a Millipede

a thousand tiny legs
crawl down my throat,
tickling my esophagus –
like the bristles of a baby toothbrush.

despite all their legs,
their movement is like cold honey,
and each lingering touch
tastes of peppers and cheap wine.

when I part my lips to speak,
they initiate a dance
upon my vocal cords –
producing biblical harp music.
I was merely trying to croak “yes.”

in an effort to appease the creature,
I began drinking sugar water and smoking
incessantly, attempting
to foster something sweet and warm.

if only I had known then
I was drowning and suffocating them instead,
all the while allowing the smoky heat
to cauterize the sugar.

unbeknownst to me, the critter
found alternative ways to satiate themself:
by consuming my genetic material
and playing jump rope
with my small intestine, tying knots.

our bodies begin to decompose eventually,
as a result of mutual damage,
and the millipede that once lived inside me
leaves this body behind.

I wish I could go back and tell myself:
a ribosome
is not the same
as a rhinestone

 

Kaleigha Easterly is a creative based in Berkeley, California. She is a kombucha-drinking, tree-hugging, sunset-chasing, radical individual studying sociology (expected graduation May 2026). Her most valued possession is a pair of wired earbuds. Which remain eternally tangled and seldom leave her ears- shitty podcasts and old music are the uniform for them.

Bonnie Matthews Brock is a Florida-based photographer, and retired school psychologist. She loves hiking the urban and woodland trails of “anywhere” (and pausing often to shoot photos) with her very patient husband (and often collaborator), Ted. Her images have been featured on the covers of magazines such as Ibbetson Street, Wild Roof Journal, Poesy Magazine, Humana Obscura, and Arkansas Review; as well as on the pages of publications such as Oddball Magazine, Ember Chasm Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Beaver Magazine, and Lateral. Her works are archived at institutions such as Poets House NYC, Brown University, and Harvard University. You can view more of Bonnie’s images on Instagram @bonniematthewsbrock.