waiting for metamorphosis

you envy the butterflies.

they bathe in dewdrops instead of poison & spread their pearly wings, catching the light [is there still light? you thought light was a thing of the past]. they’re immune to ghetto shadows & barbed wire cannot contain them. you wish to fly, to heaven, since you’re already in hell.

you watch the crowds thin.

it seems inevitable, as shoes & ragged coats pile up in the corner, never to be worn again [the butterflies pick through the remains, sifting through the ashes]. you finger pebbles and wait. you wait for a gust of wind to blow you away, but all that comes are the visions of the pink ladies & monarchs. you imagine your dirt-caked fingernails are chrysalises, waiting to burst at the seams with hope and color. life remains bleak and fleeting.

you know hope is futile

& you scrape butterfly musings into stone walls [not for hope or faith, because optimism won't help now] & kiss their wings & stroke their antennae. nothing matters anymore; you'll either metamorphise or wish you did. the butterflies are proof that something lies beyond [because no iron-clad soldier would scatter blue morphos & swallowtails]. you hope to shed your emaciated body like a cocoon; you hope to leave misery & roam in the place where butterflies prevail [because when butterflies die they lay piecefully in the dew instead of in pieces]. & when the butterflies come to lift you away, you meet them halfway.

& perhaps ecstasy is fleeting too, but here, the butterflies will watch over you, child, and no one shall make you afraid.