Tough To Be A Bug
Damselflies were my mummy’s favourites;
we saw lots of them that summer, low over the water
elegant and oddly-proportioned, and I was just growing into my teenage body
and wanted to kiss you, often.
Boys break my heart, but girls do it better.
Something taught, something known, perched on my shoulder like a beetle
says You can never have this.
I’m just curious about how your wrists look next to mine, what our
hands might do together if we’d nothing better to do than intertwine them.
I’m sorry if I treated you like
an experience.
I only write because if I don’t write I will scream. And I learned a lot of things
from the way that I felt about you, all those long months ago. It wasn’t sunny;
I preferred the way it felt when he touched me, like his fingers drew fireflies in the air.
I don’t like many girls, but when I do, I thought you should know that
they all have your wide, amazed eyes. You built castles in my mind
and I left them to rot in ivy-hung grace while I loved the sunshine boys who
left me hurt. I think if I were an insect I would like to be
a bee, a big fat bumble.
A bee flits from flower to flower, and doesn’t
think much about the colour of each one.
Daisy Harris
Daisy Harris Poetry 