By Wesley Adams
Today I brought home a worm,
it wiggled and squiggled, I named him Jerm.
He was long and dark like midnight spaghetti. I wonder if worms celebrate birthdays with rainbow confetti. I didn’t know where to keep Jerm, so he stayed in my bed.
In the morning, I squirmed with a pain in my head. But my worm was beside me and made me feel better; together we both felt a wave of unwavering hunger.
So then we feasted, and feasted, the most I’ve ever eaten.
Then my mom came in and greeted me while I eated, she looked at my worm, I insisted that they meeted. Then I coughed, and I searched for a tissue. When I returned, my mom wriggled and whined that her head had an issue.
To our amazement, we found a silver lining. In her palm was her own Jerm, squirming and thriving. Minutes passed, and she, too, got hit with a craving; so we drove to the store in search of groceries worth making. I showed the bag boy my worm, and soon he was shaking. Then we had a new worm that was his for the taking.
Fast forward. It’s now been six months. We all have a Jerm.
And Jerm has all of us, a constant companion; he speaks like our thoughts, a gorgeous connection, always in sync like pink and black knots.
Fast forward. Twelve months have gone by, the world has gone silent, all language has died, we talk without speaking, we know what is said. At night when we’re sleeping we meet in our head––arguments are jokes now, a thing of the past.
No reason to argue when our thoughts are all shared and under-stood in mass,
humans and worms, a connection we’ve made, we’ve been ready.
Today is our birthday
And we celebrate it
With rainbow confetti.
