Fifty Times the Weight

by Candace Angelica Walsh

“Go to the ant, O sluggard; study her ways and learn wisdom! For though she has no chief, no commander or ruler, she procures her food in summer, stores up her provisions in the harvest.” —​Proverbs 6:6-8
 
My friend Psychic Bob says God is a woman.
He used to drink too, and now people pay him
to tell them their future. Once, he told me 

there was no love for me in Poland, and I 
trust him because he also said more writing 
less wine. I watch the ants go to the bottle, 

but it’s too far to climb, they wisely move
around as the gnats get trapped inside. After
days of sleep I cook for myself and it becomes 

an act of rebellion, like when I shower, put on
makeup and a pretty dress, walk around the house 
alone. The liquor store down the street always

used to let me bring my dog in, so he pulls me 
up the stairs out of habit as we pass by, I fight him 
as I do the inner sonar guiding me to the nearest 

dive bar. Like how I try to fight the dreams where 
I’m drunk and screaming but loving someone still. 
I put the doorknob back on, though hints of chaos 

still haunt: like the broken plastic pieces punched
into the base boards. Dad says people in a state 
of chaos are easily controlled, I think how a male 

ant’s sole purpose is to make more ants, then die 
quickly, how the female ants carry fifty times their
weight. For years I was deafened by the deep ache 

of wanting his apology — every love a war fueled by 
curiosity: how awful can I be and you still won’t leave 
me? I settle for how he’s sorry he passed me 

the gene. The difference between sober and somber, 
a solitary mmm. I don’t care why it was born, I 
have to make sure it dies with me. Have you ever 

blocked an ant as she marched towards something 
sweet? First, she furies all around, frantic to carry
 on as she was, then she embraces the obstacle:

faithful it will point her where she needs to be. 

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Candace Angelica Walsh is The Connecticut Poetry Society's 2026 Experimental Poetry Prize Winner, a Best of the Net Nominee, and New Ohio Review Nonfiction Prize Finalist. Her work has appeared on Pop of Culture (NPR Podcasts), in Gulfstream Magazine, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, and elsewhere. She is an alum of the McCormack Writing Center (Formerly Tin House) Nonfiction Workshop, Kenyon Review Nonfiction Workshop, and Story Studio Chicago Storyboard Workshop. Originally from California, she resides in Chicago.

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