The Burlap Man

My body was made of Hessian,
Burlap to many and cloth to few.
I worried as the moths woke me,
Carrying a piece of me in their mouths as food.
I could hear them nibbling, biting, devouring me.
I swung my arms, and they attached to them too.
Every effort failed and contributed to my pain.

This morning, as I looked in my broken mirror, I figured out a plan.
My face was no longer the one I loved.
It was battered, full of stuffing and full of hate.
I wanted them to die, I wanted them to glow.
So as they fluttered around my body, attached by their mouths,
I lit a match.

But their fluttering extinguished the tiny fury.
I tried again.
And then again.
It only angered them.

They had finished eating me and left me alone with my cotton insides.
I don't know why they had not eaten all of me, but now it didn't matter.
I couldn't move and I couldn't feel anything.
At this moment, not feeling anything is better than feeling everything.