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L. Gengler

the spider above my bed

She weaved her web above my bed with strands of hair stuck to the pillows

after the last night you spent

and strands of a narrative I’d lost in time

the abandoned string of a balloon who needed their space and remnants of run on sentences.


My memory spun faster after she moved in, I’ve always been inspired by dancers.

Dreams used to slip through my fingers before they formed fists.

A pool resting in an open palm only big enough for a fraction of a reflection.

Singular open eye shedding lashes, it reflects in the water for only a moment

She liberates them from their shallow pond

Before I can blink she has returned them to captivity, resting nestled in her web.


She has moved into my dreams; I see her most when I’m asleep.

Ravenous woman, she eats them all,

sometimes before I can catch even a glimpse.

She folds them up neatly, tiny origami insects of subconscious fragments. Perhaps her web is a portal, a multidimensional existence near my window. Maybe she has not moved into my dreams maybe she has only commandeered them


Where I thought I would find resentment there is only respect.

I feel emphatic towards her and the weight she bears.


The scenes that play through a dark and empty theater while I sleep are expansive.

They emit a dangerous glow echoed in the hypodermic needles of her tiny fangs

She swallows the slides straight from the projector

I am left sitting alone in a faint blue glow.

She expands every night, she is grasping but not possessive.


We have created an ecosystem of exchange.

She traps my dreams and even while waking, the thoughts I fail to hold on to.

Keeps them safe.

In return, I let her stay.


While I stare at the ceiling that sometimes gives way to the sky,

I practice patience and pray to the gods of daydreams.

She descends from a single trapeze strand with innate grace,

Baring a translated version of my thinkings,

Unrecognizable in organization from the way they escaped the ridges in my brain.


Our conversations verge on nonsensical

Her native language is magical thinking

It is not always compatible with standard English

She pulls in words and phrase from tongues I have only passed on cracking sidewalks

In cities I used to live in,

In the cartography of false courage.

She speaks in whispers and lyrics

I can only hear her when the lights are out and barely above the noise

Of the street we both look over while we are piecing puzzles of notion together

She has a gift when it comes to making connections,

Something about the act of threading.


Nothing is safe. If you take off your armour, at least your skin can see the sun.


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