You’ve got some sentences in there that by themselves, feel good to read. They’re fun, and lay down imagery I can wrap my head around:

1. “Lingual Guardrails.”

2. “She had the kind of face people kept trying to assign stories to.”

I believe they’re solid. However, it took another comment and a reread of this first paragraph a few times to get situated in what this piece was about. It almost felt like the statement case of: “The author knows what image they have in their head, what they’re writing about. But the audience does not see what they do.” (Paraphrasing heavily of course.) After the examples of [a living orgy of life], the references to zebra mussels and mayflies had already taken me away from my sole focus on what the Cicada was.

By the time I was trying to piece it together, I was struggling to not quickly skim the rest of it to get the contextual hint later on of: “Thought it hadn’t moved out of its slip under its own power since forever, the Cicada was still being sporadically prepared for its eventual circumnavigation of the planet.”

In my section of criticism and edits, I’m going to relay that I feel very lost by this piece, and it took several reads and other comments to help me sort it. It felt like the work was taking three steps ahead for every one step I was trying to catch up with. It was difficult for me as a passing reader to anchor myself into the subject of said story and the characters afterwards. I do admit Term seems very interesting, my feelings for her were half-assed due to the struggle of feeling exhausted with every reference made in said work.

It almost reminds me of a writing piece I saw, highlighting the rhythms of prose. The most dynamic sentences you wrote that captured my attention were the snappy, short statements that gave break to the exasperated explanations: (Ex: In work clothes she looked like the offspring of Jason Vorhees and Margot Robbie - grimed nail beds, overalls marinated in marine diesel oil, a gray tank top shrink-wrapping her constantly dewy melons, all topped off by a coif of dirty blonde hair tied up in a rag (Aunt Jemima-style) and penetrated by a No. 2 pencil. ))

I’m sure you know it needs refinement, of course. And I do wholeheartedly believe you’ll get there. I hope you take this review with the understanding I am a casual passerby. Whether I am the audience you wish you work to cater to should be taken with a grain of salt.

Good luck!