Work Text:
I’m swaying in a bathroom stall, pissing and hungover as I watch a cockroach crawl across the floor in front of me. She’s all tall legs and waving antennae and toffee-colored shell, and I wonder why people think they’re ugly. I glance at the phone numbers and sexual or excremental sentiments scrawled across the wall and wonder if anyone has ever written an ode to a cockroach. My mother hates them; then again she hates all things living except for her own waspy friends. I watch as the sheroach pauses at my shoe as if contemplating climbing up my leg. She decides otherwise and slides along to the wall. I’m fascinated as she sashays up the smooth surface like gasoline on water, her peanut-brittle carapace glinting.
I finish, squeezing a last drop from my tip before I do up my pants and belt then I pull a Sharpie out of my pocket and jot down a few lines across the teal tile. The roach pauses by my scrawl, one gold and pearl antenna waving thoughtfully, as if appraising it. Then with infinite wisdom that I find myself thinking homo sapiens will never find, she glides away trailing the ink of my “k” behind her for a few steps.