Because during the poetry class I was just in, a moth flitted across the room. Scratch that. Shot across the room with a speed and straight-line purpose seldom seen in moths, even those under round-the-clock observation. The moth went right into my left eye. The instructor was trying to keep things on task as I, an impacted vessel, held my hand to my face and listed a bit in the direction of my injury.
I believe all the voices in my head are my mother. My father has not once spoken to me since his death.
Nothing dramatic, not like the time a gnat flew into my right eye at full force over at Yellowstone when all I wanted was to relaxedly take in a little scenery. I was convinced the gnat had grown a stinger for the sole purpose of injecting me on the cornea. It had not in fact stung me, but came as close to the sensation of stinging as anything without a stinger could, so to this day I maintain that it stung. I screamed, jumped about and generally carried on.
Let’s face it. I make people uncomfortable. Even when I’m not screaming, jumping about and generally carrying on. Add to this winged creatures coming at my eyes, and (I can only envision) the feeling of uncomfortable-ness I cause in others would be increased, though by what positive exponent remains to be documented. If you are interested in that degree of specificity, further experiments and data analyses will be necessary, and I’m not really down with all that, being, as I happen to be, so uncomfortable both with: 1. making people any more uncomfortable than I usually do, and 2. having things with wings deliberately sent into my eye. I am a human, after all. And these are only moths and such. I am not earth, and they are not bombs. Let’s not forget these vital distinctions.
I want also to touch on this: Things without wings going into my eye I am not fond of either. Grit, pencil shavings, salt, etc. have all made their way in at one time or another. I can only imagine what’s accumulated behind my retinae. Some things might not dissolve and instead be siphoned up through my optic nerve. Especially et cetera. I bet et cetera has a long half-life. Can you imagine how long the list would be if we detailed everything et cetera houses? Set end to end, et cetera ‘s contents would entirely wrap each and every one of our bodies, like a good bandaging job for an everywhere injury. Imagine how et cetera weighs, what we’ve made it take on, you and I. It must surely feel like a moth is always in etc’s eye. Then, to add insult to injury, we abbreviate it. How etc. aches to be longer. For recognition of all we’ve made it become. Et cetera is a moth with its wings pulled off, a thing whose shadowy undertow has been erased.
But I risk losing my point if I start talking about anything other than today and this moth. So let’s stick with the moth for now. Actually, I feel I have exhausted the subject. I wouldn’t want to write past my ending. I could go into how I had to excuse myself from the class and make my way to the restroom, how the instructor did not acknowledge what was up with my eye and the whole leaning-slightly business, or how perhaps he did acknowledge it because I do seem to recall a disembodied voice saying “I saw that” after I finally worked up the courage to say, “A moth just flew into my eye. I am hurt.”
However, I couldn’t tell you with certainty if the person who replied was the instructor, a male student, or some voice of recognition in my head. The last notion really isn’t that absurd, except that studies show almost all imagined voices are female, not male. Something about the cadence and lilt women lend to the words they/we speak. (Sorry for the slip. I sometimes forget I am a woman when I speak of women. I wonder if “a moth” ever forgets it is “moth” and what it thinks it is instead, or if it ever feels it is nothing. If I were a moth, which I am not, I believe I would lapse into thinking I was all wing. Single wing like a small fan in nothing’s hand.)
But back to voices. I believe all the voices in my head are my mother. My father has not once spoken to me since his death. I do not love him less for it.
I almost forgot to mention how I could mention why I didn’t go back to the class. It wasn’t my hurt eye, although my eye hurt. It was fear. Or poetry. In that room, there was no air for poetry, not for me. My way of writing it. I should mention this was all playing out inside me, again no fault of the class or instructor. In fact nobody saw my discomfort, the air being pushed out of my lungs one breath at a time, less air coming back with each inhalation, a kind of measured dirge toward suffocation.
The moth knew this was happening, something close to panic but not quite panic. It doesn’t surprise me the moth would recognize panic in the making, given the tizzy of a short moth-life. Poetry was unsafe for me in that moment, and the moth knew it. Hence the speed. The direction. Self-sacrificing it went into me, my light, the window of my lighthouse, to protect me. It’s the only logical explanation.
A woman just slipped into the seat across from me in the computer lab where I’ve set up camp to write this. I told her my story. She listened. She said to take a spoon, fill it with water, and lower my eye into it. She, too, is a moth. Another kind of savior.
I could keep going and going, like a winged thing fighting its way to its destination: final, temporary or insulary. But I think I will stop with the sentence, “So let’s stick with the moth for now.” That seems a proper ending. But I will add this: My only regret is not having been considerate enough to make sure the moth was OK before running out of the room. We should treat those who save us with more kindness.
Dana Henry Martin 