(The utetheisa ornatrix, more often referred to as the Bella Moth, is characterized by bright orange wings with white stripes, and is studded with black dots. Bella moths are found throughout the temperate regions of Connecticut and Nebraska, southward to New Mexico and Florida, and in Mexico and South America.)


No one knows for sure who named me Ursula, and no one knows for sure what my family name is. According to Uncle Rat, my biological mother—whoever she was—abandoned me in a Jacksonville dumpster, before she even cut the umbilical cord off of my tummy. It was a cold night and I was a wet baby–a pink baby squirming like a grub--in between the Styrofoam boxes and plastic bags. The gang of Aunties and Uncles (that’s what we call the older folks) found me, swaddled me in stolen cloth and fed me stolen milk. At some point someone started calling me Ursula, but no one knows who started it.

As a kid I used to get many things from the dumpster: toys, clothes, sometimes food. It had many books, too. My all-time favorite was The Beginner’s Guide to Zoology. Lots of pictures, lots of lions and tigers and bears, but my favorite section was the one about insects. I flipped through centipedes, millipedes, mosquitoes and spiders; my eyes scanned their legs, their eyes, their wings and antennae; I read about their prey, their behavior, their qualities—even how their lives began and ended.

I had always known what I’d look like as an adult. I would always be selling something, whether that be sugar, weed, or just pleasure, if you know what I mean. When I was old enough, I knew that I would be dressed up in that ugly orange uniform–that uniform all of us wore, all of us had to wear. The uniform I didn’t want to wear. I hated my existence.


(Bella moth larvae feed on a leguminous plant species named Crotalaria. This plant is rich in pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which are basically toxins that make the larvae unpalatable for predators. The reason why these toxins do not kill the larvae is because of the gene pyrrolizidine-alkaloid-N-oxygenase, which functions in detoxifying the alkaloids.)


I swallowed everything that the Aunties and Uncles taught me.

I never got to attend school, but I still received a very strict education. Uncle Jon taught me how to steal bread without being caught. Auntie Jen taught me how to lie to the cops. Auntie Marie taught me how to bury things. Uncle Sean taught me how to sneak around people.

Uncle Rob taught me how to trespass rich mansions. Auntie Rea taught me how to break into cars and take stuff. Auntie Jude taught me how to set things on fire. Uncle Rick taught me how to drill holes into walls.

Uncle Ted taught me how to use guns. Auntie Sam taught me how to use men and make profit out of them.

And slowly I gained experience, slowly I grew swift and keen; slowly I became numb. It was just a way of defending myself, said Uncle Rat.


(It has been observed that some bella moth larvae cannibalize eggs, pupae, or larvae of their kind as a solution for alkaloid deficiency.)


By the time I was seventeen I had killed three people. Three girls. Actually three sisters in my gang.

Leah was a year older than I was when I strangled her to death with my nylon stockings. She had been going out every night wearing my earrings without permission. It wasn’t that much a deal to be honest, so at first I thought about forgiving her. But then she ignored me and even started wearing my shoes without permission. Uncle Rat told me I should kill her. So I did. It was all part of the gang tradition after all.

Glen was the same age as I was when she was thrown out from the third floor window and then run over by a truck. We’d fought over a boy. Glen tried to tell him bad things about me and Uncle Rat told me it was fine to get rid of her.

Sal was a girl five years younger than me. She called me a whore. So I shot her dead. I didn’t have to ask Uncle Rat this time.

All three had good reasons for being killed, good reasons to die, said Uncle Rat.


* * *

(When bella moth larvae metamorphose into adult moths, they carry their toxic alkaloids with them. They continue to use them as a means of defense against predators.)


I was eighteen, an adult of the gang, selling all three of the things that I knew I would be selling, always running away from someone or something: blue suits, walkie-talkies, sirens, bloodhounds.

I wanted to unzip my cocoon and slip out of it. My adulthood was a mere continuation of my early years, a toxic cycle I could never break away from–yet, it also was what the Aunties and Uncles would call survival. Defense. Now the kids were calling me Auntie.Someone started calling me Auntie Belle after watching the movie; and again, no one knows for sure who started that. I did not want to be an Auntie Belle. At first I wanted to be just plain Ursula, but I soon began to hate both.

But from the very beginning I was meant to be an Ursula, and I was meant to metamorphose into this Auntie Belle, said Uncle Rat. And I was meant to go down this lane, no matter how fast it was.


(The utetheisa ornatrix, more often referred to as the Bella Moth, is characterized by bright orange wings with white stripes studded with black dots.)


They got me when I was twenty. The orange uniform suited me well. I was served only the meals that I deserved, and was given a cell just big enough to fit my body.


I looked out of my cell window and saw a brick wall. It made me smile. It was my life. My adulthood, my outcome. Nothing had changed, and I was still the pink grublike baby, the tiny ragdoll looking through the dumpster for food, the confused teenager loading her gun with crudely manicured fingernails.

But one day I looked up and saw the brick wall glowing in a fluorescent orange, an indescribable kind of orange. The sun was setting outside the state prison, ripening, bursting and pouring its sweet juice onto the walls. This was something that Uncle Rat had never told me about.

I wanted to detoxify myself from all the sins. I wanted to become something different, and I realized I could become something different. Sure, I would be in the same orange, but it would no longer be a disgraceful orange of sin and fear–it would be an orange of pride, an orange I wanted to be. Time was ticking, the sky was dimming, and I knew I had to do this before the darkness came, before the jaws of the nocturnal came and engulfed my eggs of hope.


And so I flew.