FRESH YARN presents:

An Open Letter to the Lunesta Butterfly
By Dena Taylor

Dear creepy Lunesta Butterfly Thing:

You scare the shit out of me. I don't know how else to say it but when I see you flying into people's homes -- innocent people, mind you -- with your radioactive green contrail, I get chills. It doesn't make me want to get all fetal, suck my thumb and sleep. It makes me want to add a panic room on to my apartment, and stock it with fly swatters and Raid.

When I see you hovering over that seemingly nice lady's face, I fear for what the television advertisers aren't showing us: your antennae puncturing her eye sockets and sucking the intelligence from her brain whilst administering your brand of toxic extraterrestrial "sleep"-inducing agent. Oh, she'll sleep better alright, because the part of her brain that helps her hold a job, pay the bills on time, press the brake at a red light and turn off the stove is slowly being ingested into a fluorescent winged insect who is no doubt taking it back to some gigantic moth-like nucleus floating out in space. I'd sleep better if I were empty-headed, too. Who wouldn't?

I ask you Lunesta bug -- no, I command you and your fellow antifreeze-infused floaters -- to leave me alone. I may not always get a good night's sleep, but I'll take a few toss-and-turns over your blinding (not to mention outdated) fluorescent green flutter any day. And should you think otherwise, should you enter my home under the guise of a doctor's prescription, or a screenless window left open in the middle of the night, I'll swat you silly. In fact, you should know that in real life, we humans put screens on our windows to keep creepy crawlies like you from coming inside. But you knew that didn't you, you weird little invertebrate. Subliminally suggesting screenless windows in your ads is all part of your Grand Insect Plan, isn't it? ISN'T IT?!

Just know that if you dare flap your way into my bedroom, you're one swift swipe away from being crushed in an anti-bacterial handiwipe and flushed down the toilet with some of my own toxic substances, if you know what I mean.

Consider yourself warned, Lunesta McPesta. Consider yourself warned.

Signed,
Awake and Armed in Austin

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