This is where I became a spider

Squeezing smaller and smaller, pressed to the floor

Dodging feet and arms and uncaring eyes

And this is where I stretched out my eight arms

Stretched out to be seen, stretched thin and spindly

Stretched to hold within them this whole cruel world

And this is where I wove my great web

Making prey of what I feared

And making a predator of my own terror

Tangling myself in words, in eyes, in complications

Until they were inextricable from me

And in my web, I drew to me the dark and deceptive and irredeemable 

And I deemed them prey, and I deemed them loved

And I sat beside them in these chairs

And I watched them push through these doors

And I followed them in circles

Weaving tighter, stretching thinner

And yet,

And yet they escaped regardless

Smiling back with those sharp teeth

Before slicing free and leaving my webs lifeless.