Evil Eye Poem by Cat Singh

I did something cruel
once when I was little (and probably again)
and set a fly on fire.
The heat twirled it onto its back somehow.
It writhed in agony,
flailing its tiny thread legs in the air
like ribbons of the fire itself.
Bit by minuscule bit, the little body turned white
and peeled like birch bark.
When we were kids, we called them paper trees
and tore off the thin strips
of bark to write on with pens.
Some kid had drawn little eyes everywhere
that year
and said it was a gang sign
and also the sign of a ghost creeping by
and also a demon symbol.
There were eyes ripped into all the paper trees
and scratched into
the playground equipment.
They watched us and warned us of evil
around the corner. Kids are such liars,
and I do not know why.
They are the kindest (the cruelest) beings on earth.
That fly turned into a little gray ball on the windowsill,
so grey you could feel it.
As I poked it with my trembling, guilty finger,
it crumbled into an ashy puddle,
taken in slowly by my thirsty
eyes.