If Humans Are a Plague, Then Baby I'm a Locust

Hurtling forward while losing energy
I spin in circles and curl inward
My pores bleed oil while my clothing
Burns, chemically induced catastrophe
I shut my eyes tighter and tighter
And pray that the sun feels pity
On its third child

Please don't let me suffer mother,
Divinity that has filled my stomach
To bursting, the core of my being
Is molten and writhing in agony
And ecstasy equally, I burn deeply
But your touch warms my skin
Even now, I crave it

Your rays
Are the most comforting of hands
Tenderly brushing against my face
My frozen extremities revive
When you bathe me in your heat
Please cleanse me in your fire
I long to be freed of my disease
They pierce my skin, drink my blood

They hate me, and I can feel their
Hatred with every passing minute
Growing and growing and growing
It is a cold flame, a cutting blade
My fever rises with their fanaticism
They scream so loudly, they plead
Please, let us die

So burn them away, And let me hurtle
Off into space, empty and dark
I hate them more, than they hate me
Finally, I am freed, Finally, I am
Me, more divine than my ember mother
More beautiful than oxygen and carbon
Perfect and dead

-By David Mar
There’s this one scene from Adventure Time where the Ice King screams “Oh I don’t know... I’m complicated--- and spontaneous!”, and that really resonated with me.

Parasite

You’re attached to my brain
Keeping me alive

But this isn’t symbiosis
It’s screws in my skull

You drain my ventricle
Into my gut

But this isn’t symbiosis
It’s tubes in my neck

You gave back my sight
In place of comfort

But this isn’t symbiosis
It’s scars on my belly

This isn’t symbiosis
You’re my little parasite

-By Sara Quinn
Sara Quinn is the Editor in Chief at Tumbleweird. She makes pixel art, writes stuff, reads A TON, and plays a lot of video games ;)

worms do a lot of important things like aerate the ground for plants

Wriggling worms scrape
Against sun-bleached concrete
Forced to surface from the rain
They writhe against the grey
Of manufactured perfection
I threw them into the grass
As a child, as a savior
I see their corpses now
And wonder if, to them
I was a natural disaster
Sentencing them to drown

-By David Mar

Caution

COVID co-conspirators
Carrying concealed contagions and
Carefully constructed conspiracies
Covertly congregating
Carelessly contaminating communities
Callously creating cadavers
Complementing crassness and calamity
Congratulating complete catastrophe
Criticizing caution and collectiveness
Condemning competence and caring
Confused controlled collection of cunts

-By Carlos Hu$tle

This time of year

When it gets to be this time of year, the holidays are through, with many cheerless months ahead, yet to be endured.

Many folks start in remembering. Melancholy for a Summer lost. Longing for the Spring to come.

Me, I like to hunker down and set myself to dreaming. By building a ship that requires such care. With many parts and many steps, and all the paint and rigging.

Finally finished and put on the shelf, I turn to find that Spring has sprung. Packed with dreams, my ship sets sail for the rolling shores of Summer.

-By Michael Rastovich