When the past causes fear of the future |
The Smallest Butterfly She makes herself small to hide from what has become her life; a butterfly among the sons of Anak. Everything is so much bigger than she, and the fears that burn within become a wildfire spreading outward and seek to ignite her withering effete wings and leave her flightless, hiding among the smoke and ash where she lies holding her breath. On braver days she rises up, only to discover the more she explores the smaller she gets, until she finds herself curled up, childlike, beneath the nearest friendly tree. I saw her sleeping in the rain with a limb near at hand, because she knows one day it will never stop. She waits for it to wash her away. She stuggles daily to endure the countless insidious doubts that grab and pull at her quicksand life. The drudgery has stolen her passion and left her praying for strength to just breathe. Her stridulous scream finds no ear to jar. She uses lovers like cigarettes to fill the malignant moments, each one leaving her more addicted, more breathless, and more powerless than the last. The harshest years have proven impossible for her to reconcile. I once heard her say an abhorrent past sets in place an unhopeful future. In time maybe she will decide her tomorrows are best decided by what she wants and not what she has already seen. My greatest fear is of her finding she might more easily stop the rain |