I was a spirited child when I was younger and it was slowly taken away by somebody who wanted control. My childhood was stolen same as my mind and my body. Looking back I think little pieces were broken off until I was small inside. I will never understand how so many people could do what they did and still sleep at night feeling no pain. Laying restless often I don’t wish pain on them, but sometimes I wish they felt the way I feel in the darkness and the fuzz of the past.
I loved colours, I loved stories, I absolutely loved animals, and I loved smells. My favourite smell was electricity in the air right before a storm. Feeling the small buzz on the skin I could always tell when it would rain down and the calmness it left in the soul. I loved the lady bugs and their bright red shell on their tiny immaculate bodies. My mind was great but it was also drugged into mindlessness. You couldn’t tell on the surface but I felt it. I felt everything and I felt small much like the lady bug.
A bee is a small insect with fuzzy bodies. They are busy but effective little creatures. The sound they make is exquisite. I was six years old when I imagined being a tiny honey bee flying away to a hive to produce something new. Watching the bees collect pollen from flower to flower care free but with so much to do. I was six years old when my mom came back and got in a fight for a reason I don’t remember. Six year old me was being watched by a man named Derrick we called him uncle. Tiny honey bee is what I wanted to be in the basement being watched by a monster named Derrick. I left in my mind to smell the dandelions the honey bee and I loved so much. Six year old me would soon be put on several drugs from Derricks mother, my foster grandmother.
The cricket is a musical instrument. It rubs its legs together to make a chirping sound. If you sit still in a field, you can hear the cricket orchestra sing loudly with pride. For a tiny bug it has a mighty strong song. I would think of crickets while my grandmother would lie about my intelligence to the doctor that never asked if it was true. Fielding the cricket song as she claimed I was angry and out of control. I danced to crickets in my head as children called my Ritalin; I was but the blue pill being put into my body, my mind was not mine to have. Three pills each for ADHD, FASD, and psychosis. I heard crickets when the test proved that only one of these were accurate. I have ADHD but the lied continued to be carried out by a mentally sick woman. There’s a tinge of sadness to the cricket’s song: partly due to it being so quiet on its own. It’s a lonely song to play when people don’t listen fully to the orchestra of the cricket.
Most people are afraid of spiders when really they are surprising creatures. Some are harmless while others carry a deadly poison. No spider web has the same web, however like humans the spider comes in all forms, and designs their creations. I admire the spider because the black widow represents the deadly creature of abusive parents like my mother and grandmother. One bite and it’s fatal for the prey. If you get a daddy long legs, you will have an innocent spider who only eats mosquitoes. They look scary, but they have a romantic notion to protect the home they inhabit. When my grandmother chose to take my siblings and me away for a while, I would find daddy long legs and watch it climb high on the walls. She hid us from our grandfather and any one looking for us kids. The black widow didn’t care how much poison she spread, only if she could spread it on her terms. The dadddy long legs undaunted by the black widow climbed high to live another day.
Bugs are amazing creatures. They hold incredible senses beyond what someone sees and hears. I wished as a child to be a bug and be able to live life with purpose. Much like a bug somebody bigger could come around and squish you like it didn’t matter. I felt squished and the people who did it just kept going. How can a tiny creature with offerings of greatness and intrigue be killed by a thoughtless act and have it continue with no consequence? If I had a time machine I would watch the bugs with tiny me and show her she was just as strong as the bugs she seen in her mind. I would lead her to the chrysalis and tell her butterflies are the change of spirit she should love one day.
Written by Ali Johnson
PERSONAL BLOGS OF LIFE'S GIFTS AND REFLECTIONS 