The Lady

They call you a loveliness, but I don’t think that’s true.

Yes, you look splendid in your spotted red coats, with wings poking out in a hint of black lace, but your splendor does hide something wicked beneath.

You are a monster, truly.

A devourer.

A cannibal.

I release you into my garden, not because I like to look upon your colors, but so you will destroy.

I want you to feast on other small green, and white, and red little bodies.

I want you to devour their young until they are obliterated in my small corner of the world.

Oh, how I hate a purposeless insect.

But you are not that.

You are my wicked little friends.

You are the only creature with six legs permitted to crawl along my skin without being promptly batted at or, more likely, murdered without a second thought.

Your friend the mantis is also allowed to live, but never to touch, for her devouring spirit is not cloaked in pretty robes of red– her monstrosity is plain to see. She need not hide her true intent, being such a large, battle-adorned creature. But you are small: lovely.

You must be unassuming as you crawl across fingertips and freckled cheeks, for if one knew your true nature, surely such a little thing would not be allowed to live? To feast on soft bodies?

Yes, you look lovely, but the red on your back may as well be blood.

It is at the very least armor.

Perhaps that is why in every iteration of your name, they call you lady.

A pretty thing.

Unassuming armor to hide a hungry monster.

No.

You in mass form are not a loveliness, but rather a lethality– at least to the other garden bugs.

But.

I do know you. Deeply. You and I are not so different, are we?

That is why when I let you out, I found myself alight in genuine surprise…

Because I did not think: Monster. Beast. Cannibal. Destroyer.

I did not smile my usual wicked grin at the havoc you would unleash upon my garden foes.

Instead, as you crawled across the fingertips and forearms of my own little ladies, I could think of but one word:

Loveliness.