My my mind and memory

I remember when I was in your backyard as a child and you pulled the legs off of a spider
all eight
one by one
like someone madly in love
muttering she loves me
she loves me not
I felt bad for that poor daddy longlegs
but at the time
I was afraid of them so I didn't stop you

Now I'm about 20 years older
and was reminded of this memory when recently I stood listening to
old compressed recordings of Negro hymns on YouTube
through speakers my iPhone
Which was plugged into an exposed wall outlet
like an umbilical chord
uniting mother to child
And from where I stood
In my basement
I watched another spider
Of course it was a daddy longlegs

this time I fell in love

as it slowly
gracefully
Appeared to
 fall
with form more elegant than an Olympic diver
using a clear Web
shooting from its ass
 Yes
With
Ease
she shot that web
from that ass
Daddy did what came natural

And daddy's shadow never left daddy's side
Shadow slowly, steadily, chugged along side daddy
slightly ahead
Like walking an impatient dog

Shadow
content with being confined to the surface of wherever light casts him

But
needless to say
I sometimes digress
 
I only mean to say i have you to thank for confronting my old self's fear of spiders and slowly leading me to embrace fear

almost like pushing me into that dark figurative cave in my mind
Where the light that passes through my pupils no longer reaches
Where my thoughts are born like life at the deepest part of the ocean
Where my voice and those of what stand in for my angels and demons echo off the cave walls
and those characters I've come up with for stories that I've forgotten always become lost and live simple lives
that benefit their master (me)
they stay inspired by painting the cave's walls with my blood
blood they harvest from a red river one might consider more beautiful than the Nile
located just below my pineal gland
created by an old blue leaky vein
Which explains the bloody noses I get when its too humid outside