[KRX]

Have we established how much I love Scarlet Spider? Because I wrote a poem about Kaine Parker, the Scarlet Spider.

The Ballad of Kaine Parker

From the minute I was born,
Rising from my pod,
A scarred copy of a man,
I was told that I was a failure.
My father cast me into the rain,
A broken toy,
A knock-off of a better one,
And named me after the first murderer.
(Spelled with a “K” instead of a “C,”
Along with an additional “E,”
Because it was the ’90s,
Wen pour litrasee wuz kewl.)
It was a legacy I did not disappoint.

An uncle I never had,
From memories I never owned,
Told someone who wasn’t me,
“With great power, there must also come great responsibility.”
All of the power.
None of the responsibility.
But my brother taught me to embrace his words,
And he died following them
By saving Peter Parker.

It was a fate that I shared.
But not for long.
I was buried as a man.
I was awakened as a spider.

My father found me,
And took me in,
Proud to see me embrace my true self.
Parker, my brother, saved me,
And I saved the city.
They needed a killer.

He gave me a costume that could turn invisible.
That’s what I wanted to do—disappear.
Go to Mexico,
Drink margaritas,
And stick my feet in the sand.
But I found a girl in a box,
Swimming silently in a sea of slave corpses.
(Did I just say something poetic?)

She was followed by some crazy
jackass with literal firepower,
And next thing you know,
I’m Houston’s own superhero.
Yippity-fucking-do.
They want a monster as a hero.

I was born to kill,
Only good for killing.
Not like my brothers.
They were men who dreamed of being spiders.
I was a spider who dreamed of being a man.

And yet...
I found people I could care about,
Who I cared about.
People who could care about me,
Who cared about me.

Houston called me by Ben’s name.
My brother’s name.
I don’t deserve it,
But it’s mine,
And I have to live up to it.

I lived a life of rage.
Of fear.
Of hate.
Of death.
A life without responsibility.
But now I have a second chance.
Maybe I can learn to be a man.

My name is Kaine.
Sometimes, there’s a Parker at the end of it.
I’m the Scarlet Spider.
And it’s time I started living.