An Entomologist's Last Love Letter

Dear Samantha

I’m sorry

We had to get a divorce

I know that seems like an odd way to start a love letter but let me explain:

It’s not you

It sure as hell isn’t me

It’s just human beings don’t love as well as insects do

I love you…far too much to let what we have be ruined by the failings of our species

I saw the way you looked at the waiter last night

I know you would never DO anything, you never do, but…

I saw the way you looked at the waiter last night

Did you know that when a female fly accepts the pheromones put off by a male fly, it re-writes her brain, destroys the receptors that receive pheromones, sensing the change, the male fly does the same. When two flies love each other they do it so hard, they will never love anything else ever again. If either one of them dies before procreation can happen both sets of genetic code are lost forever. Now that…is dedication.

After Elizabeth and I broke up we spent three days dividing everything we had bought together

Like if I knew what pots were mine, like if I knew which drapes were mine somehow the pain would go away

This is not true

After two praying mantises mate, the nervous system of the male begins to shut down

While he still has control over his motor functions

He flops onto his back, exposing his soft underbelly up to his lover like a gift

She then proceeds to lovingly dice him into tiny cubes

Spooning every morsel into her mouth

She wastes nothing

Even the exoskeleton goes

She does this so that once their children are born she has something to regurgitate to feed them

Now that…is selflessness

I could never do that for you

So I have a new plan

I’m gonna leave you now

I’m gonna spend the rest of my life committing petty injustices

I hope you do the same

I will jay walk at every opportunity

I will steal things I could easily afford

I will be rude to strangers

I hope you do the same

I hope reincarnation is real

I hope our petty crimes are real enough to cause us to be reborn as lesser creatures

I hope we are reborn as flies

So that we can love each other as hard as we were meant to.