last saturday, i poured faucet droplets into a pond so i could watch the ripples and

this week, it caused a tsunami and i swear i’m sorry sorry sorry

there’s a chrysalis of hourglass sand staring right at me and i dare not

try to heat it up and turn it into glass because i know what the shards will do but

there’s a tree in the backyard that i fell from and broke my wrist and i wonder

if the person who planted its seed would give me a splint of apologies

silver caterpillar on the kitchen counter: would you tell me what it means?

when a tornado breaks your heart, does the cocoon help you breathe?

i jumped into converse sneakers, ran out the door with a backpack, and

i sprinted to the eye of the hurricane just so i could use it to see

the wings of a butterfly are paper thin, yet their gentle flutter commands the wind

the past is the past, but if you don’t rinse your sins, at the end of the day, the clock still spins

i slipped and snuffed out the dining-room candle, and next saturday, a wildfire came

and all the pretty little blue delicate butterflies mocked me as they brought the rain

i looked into a crystal ball and saw a kaleidoscope of milkweed fields

pupae rested on every leaf and warned me: little girl, don’t you tamper with the future just yet

so i shut my eyes and ran to the garden and waited for the butterfly effect butterfly effect 

butterfly effect

a while ago, i buried a butterfly,

kowtowed in front of a temple, and 

pretended like i knew how to pray.

finger joints aching from the cold,

crescent moons branded into my knuckles,

i begged guanyin for a new life and

sacrificed the ashes of my family photos to her

wailing candles.  

using her bitter saké as a disinfectant,  

i drank bottoms-up to cleanse my throat of broken glass and

dead nymphalidae—

sat on my knees and

waited for the

reset. 

i killed my past lives by felling them with 

paperweights and violin strings.

strange, how

those butterfly bodies had my face.

i want to bury them and

bleed the stardust from their wings so they

don’t look pretty anymore.

like a broken proboscis wound into sickly

vocal cords, crushed thoraxes

screaming with a voice that sounds like

my own, i drop the butterfly as it

stings my palm,

disgusting.

so i pray, again.

kami-sama,

how do i do i forget my own face? how do i stop these

repulsive pieridae from cursing my tomorrow?

i tried to suture the infested splits in my throat, but they only close with 

concrete tears and self love, no worries

i just have to reinvent myself until

i'm worthy of such things.

i coughed out a million fluttering ghosts yesterday.

damn those naive little things; i shot them down one by one until they

pooled by my ankles.

please, can someone lay me down in front of that church

and exorcise these butterflies from my body,

so that i can forget who i was yesterday?

stupid, there are chrysalides hanging in the cracks of my psyche.

if they were maggots instead, then

i wouldn’t grieve—

i wouldn’t grieve for a dead childhood.

my throat is closed up with butterflies and

i’m sorry, mom, dad;

i can’t remember why you love me.

i pour baijiu over my wounds again and

light an incense stick.

o’ bohdisattva, 

save me from my own demons;

it seems that my body is in dire need of a 

revision. 

gods don’t listen to those who don’t believe.

i guess you aren’t supposed to ask them to love you when

you can’t do it yourself.

a butterfly scalds my fingertip and just like that

their bodies stack in my bedroom, looking like torn up

mourning clothes. it

hurts to look at them and it hurts to

think back to what could’ve been and it hurts to imagine that

i could've been better.

so for the last time, i close my eyes and

clasp my hands together.

o’ beautiful future

why do you keep killing butterflies? and how do i become

something you won’t regret? 

of course, there was no answer, so my body wrote their own instructions.

so maybe i could finally breathe without dying the walls of my house

red.

these butterflies,

one day i’ll send them fluttering away. 

o’ future self

don’t hold your breath;

i want to pick you apart until

i’m satisfied.

hold open your mouth and

let the butterflies fly out.

then, i promise that i'll

grow you into something i can finally be

proud of.

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.

I am six and too young to know better,

all laughter and curiosity and youth,

balancing on my tip-toes as chubby fingers grasp

at the wooden box on a bookshelf,

gazing in awe at the butterfly tucked within.

I am eleven when I open that box again

all cartwheel and sticky summer smile-

a smile that fades when I see the pins.

Needles thrust through my butterfly,

crucifying those gentle wings to a corkboard cross.

I am fifteen when the butterfly's corpse is moved to my bedside table,

and at night I whisper to the box's macabre contents.

We are the same, you and I,

all pins and pain and appearances.

And as I walk out the door I pin up my smile-

for what am I if not a decoration in this box we call Earth?

I am twenty when I throw the box to the ground,

all freedom and broken glass and rage.

There are holes in my wings,

stiff from being pinned to corkboard for too long,

and a dull grey has replaced the blue.

But my worth is not defined by the color of my wings

and one day

I will fly.

Hey budding butterfly,

Can you hear me?

Tell me where your home is

And we can have tea!

Hello little butterfly,

So gently you fly

Can you teach me to do so,

And help me touch the sky?

Dear, dear butterfly,

You buzz with glee

What is it you suck from the flowers,

Can I have some for me?

Playing with my hair,

Is that you?

Do tell me butterfly,

Why are you so blue?

Excuse me, butterfly,

I heard you were a worm,

My friends too call me a bookworm

So tell me, how can I transform?

Oh dear butterfly,

No, no, no!

I have much more to ask you,

So please don’t go!

Oh my God! Butterfly,

Where are you now?

If you come to me, flutterfly,

I will promise you with tons of love.

I understand butterfly,

You too have a home.

But come to my window tomorrow,

And together we can roam.

What colors are growing around us,

In the space between our breaths?

heavy wings don't carry

hushed whispers scream

night ticks on forever

like falling in a dream

What colors are growing around us,

In the empty space between our breaths?

You gave me wings of metal

I do my best to fly

Struggle as I will

Too heavy but I try.

You gave me wings of metal

They weigh and pull me down

In a vast sea of betrayal

On the bottom here I drown.

You spread your colored wings

They light up your whole world

As I sit in silver darkness

Forever I am torn.

You take off in the morning

The sun warm in the sky

As I sit here on cold ground

A metal butterfly.

And I drew a heart on your sleeve

the way you wore it when you wiped me off your mouth

in bold vivid I shook out a line

on the damp, crinkled linen of your skin

and you looked like the eyes of a small dog

when they know they have been forgotten

and you broke it into ribbons, you did

i know this

simply because I do

and sweaters won’t keep it warm

not even in winter does the cold

broken heart

look up from its tears

that run red around your body

i should have drawn a butterfly

instead of drawing inspiration from

like an insipid stream

butterflies don’t break when they taste metal

the soft curve of the mandible

that has chewed the edges of my heart

we share a pair of eyes

but never again

will you let me close enough to finish the forgotten curves of a wing

A butterfly’s life, they say

barely as long as a day;

Untrue, I found for it can last

until almost a year has passed.

What of the love that flutters, like butterfly wings in my heart?

It will never part.

My mother had a special bush to attract them,

It had purple flowers, and drooped from the burden.

My mother always had the pretty things in her garden,

And when they flew near,

She would coo and whisper in my ear,

"Look baby! There's a little Flutterby!"

I'd stop my game and look up with a sigh,

To watch a miracle flutter by.

To my one true friend,

Remember that happy things surround us if we stop and look for them.