oh to be a butterfly

changing history

and making tummies flutter.

to be admired,

not for who you were,

but what you are now.

to be beautiful

only on the second glance.

to sip sweet nectar

from simple flowers.

to share dinner

with dirty bees.

to fly with the heat,

following an unknown,

yet innate sense of home....

my mother

an ever changing constant.

carrying seeds of knowledge,

thick skin, and warm heart.

she withstood the fires

of a painful life.

protecting her family

in the boughs of her arms.

but constants

don’t exist within mortality.

when the wind changes,

and the ground dries,

the jack comes to harvest.

we are left

with roots and a stump.

or perhaps a promise

to grow again.

so even now

...

i’m a blue robin egg

in an used, empty nest

still waiting hatch.

those grown up birds

already fell, they flew far,

and left me in an used, empty nest.

and i try to think

if i had three eggs,

would i keep the one that never changed.

see my babies grow, and keep the last

in an used, empty nest.

would i still love an egg

that never hatches.

that never flies, but never crashes.

would i love ...

it’s the nights,

when you are waiting for the sun

to rise again.

where you lose

all the sanity you gained in the day

before night fell.

how the stars in the sky

become dancers in your eyes as you move

in the light of the moon.

yet when you rest again

and darkness still dominates the light,

it’s all so exhausting.

time had never passed so slowly....

in a shivering wood,

frozen in time.

you stand at a door,

covered in glistening shine.

with a raise of your fist,

and a rap of thrice,

you suddenly find yourself,

covered in ice!

all the snow on the roof,

from just last night,

fell at your knock,

and gave you a fright!

just as you go

to swipe off your beard,

you find in your face,

a tiny girl has appeared.

she looks at you,

with your now wh...

you stare at my eulogies,

looking for sympathetic tragedies.

trying to read between my lines,

as if i’m trying to hide.

and when the ending doesn’t rhyme,

you judge me.

because my life must be a song,

forced to fit silly corsets to belong.

you say words are freedom,

to slice through barriers.

but i see you tying the knots,

locking muses behind golden glass.

we can only twist the words,

bu...

if wishes fell like rain,

then certainly i am a storm.

for all i ever wanted to be,

i simply never was.

i could drown myself,

choking on pathetic potential.

even if i swam in “what could have been”,

i’d beach myself on safer sands.

my head could become stormy clouds,

and dreams turn into a downpour,

but my eyes will always open and see

empty deserts waiting for me....

you stand in the summer,

but it’s still rainy days.

you hold an umbrella,

hoping humid wind will take you away.

you walk in dry fields,

but your feet drag in the mud.

you wear a dress,

hoping the birds don’t eat pretty corpses.

it is these days,

when rain makes mud,

and birds start circling,

that we wish to return to the earth once again.

and sometimes,

you sigh and take deep breaths.

tha...

it is the performance you gave,

that always begins a tale.

a storm behind a battered gate,

whipping open with a gale.

wind funneled into lungs for an alto,

screams of anguish in legato.

glorious lights flash through their pain,

the clouds sound drums to gloat.

but the pain is voltage,

electricity hurdling through an cloudy vale.

the smell sweet as gelato,

the rain settling against me like a...

i sit in a room,

with only one heartbeat.

no more beeping machines,

random strangers demanding odd things.

now i’m alone,

without your breath.

just the ringing in my ears,

a death shawl to cover the emptiness.

i’d thought seeing you here

was overwhelming in my chest.

all the wires hooked to you,

i’d cry with air burning my lungs.

now i see nothing of you here,

but my chest still hurts.

i...