The Life of a Housefly

I outstretch the delicate membranes

of my new wings for the first time.

Blood-red eyes bulging out

of my fuzzy iridescent temple.

In a fortnight,

I will be but the crunchy carcass of an insect.

Motionless, lifeless on a windowsill.

If I am lucky.

For I could get crushed in a vacuum

or digested by a cat long before my fortnight is up.

Have you no mercy?

You have not a scrap of mercy

for soon I will be a scrap.

You have no care.

No pity for the short life

of a housefly.

I am just a pest in your cruel eyes

or a bug that keeps bugging you.

But my life has only just begun,

and it is long before my fate will come.