I just spotted my #1 milf (moth I’d like to find) in a trashcan full of literal raccoon shit. This is the bad-wing, and I’ve been trying to find one for years. The bad-wing is so named because the top part of it’s wing is much longer than the bottom part, which makes it hard for people to spread open and pin them down on a cork board.
How odd to be a beautiful, green little moth so-named after the fact that it is hard for an old German man to spread open and pose your dead body.
ok no one has to read this but basically I’m going thru a lot right now and my good friend @goodlysin sent me this post of this little baby moth and I was so moved that I had to immediately write a poem about it. anyway here it is.
Bad-Wing
The bad-wing moth and I should be bitter folk —
me, for being named after bitterness, I should be steeped too long in it like unsweet tea, singing with the truth of bitterness —
the bad-wing moth for the mere fact it was named for how a man might arrange its body, just so, after its death.
To exist. To be named badly. To be manipulated by unfeeling hands.
I feel as though I’ve been misnamed.
I feel as though I should be a green-winged thing,
and terrible to pose,
and proudly.
But the truth is I’ve made it all too easy.
I still often bend to the whims of men,
and shrink under the scrutiny of those who’d wish me harm.
I should be a bitter thing. I should live up to my name.
But I am too soft and care too much and want to live too peacefully.
Too quietly even though I am not quiet.
Even though every part of my being beats its bad wings against the confines
of this cage I’ve made myself, the bars screwed in
by the hands of others,
this body
pierced through
by the hands of others.
I’d like to think
the bad-wing moth and I are kindred folk
but the truth is I just want to be like her:
to exist quietly, to be green and winged,
to be bad-winged and hard to control,
to be able to fly away
and hard to find, a secret thing,
to know the taste of bitterness.
This is so beautiful, thank you for this addition
