I am a butterfly (I wrote, so long ago)
but only the worm part.
(I had no wings.)
We're all larvae (I suppose) at first.
Bloated neonates spilling milk-like
from the lips of proud opportunists
bursting with individualized pressure
differentials as familial as overripe fruit.
But my own squirming made no end.
I spun no cocoon in which to pupate,
to mature.
I remained instead an ugly,
useless thing.
A parasitic load of bad math.
A function of prone contemplation over
a mouthful of dirt,
unpalatable even to a hungry bird.
(I have no wings.)
But (perhaps) a life forged in the
interstices of other people's momentary
lapses can still be a pretty good life.
And so we've come to an arrangement,
myself and my liberty,
an exchange of time and space for a spiritual
stipend conducted by direct-deposit to an
opportunity-cost ATM.
(We don't get in each other's way out
of mutual respect.)
There's no longer any benefit in my doubt,
no half measures in my cups,
no pity in my patter,
but no matter how small (smaller,
smallest) I get,
I still can't afford the
premium on regret.
So I cut coupons,
trimming affectionate sales for a course
in Friendship and trading in the dog-watch
for a footsore list I'd otherwise do without.
(I cant these days.)
I'm no butterfly (nor worm,
I suppose).
Granny knotted puppet strings are all
the flightless aviation I can manage in
between twice divided transactional
assets of emotional freight.
(Ask around!)
But that doesn't make me a failure.
No.
I will blink out unhindered,
a sort of self-sufficient land-bound
crustacean pinked by a circulating
reminder of the original amnion.
(I do tend to forget.)
And in the meantime I will follow in my
own hesitant sidesteps a path forged by
its own absence.
(How can I do otherwise?)
Sensitive instruments require
sensitive recalibration.
I hum.
Buzz.
Shimmy and flutter.
(I'll never fly.)
I watch with compound eyes a
kaleidoscopic mosaic of past and present,
unable to translate impulses into any
fixed point,
a blind spotted future standing at the
intersection of tissue and electronic traffic.
I described it once.
I opened my mouth and words flowed
through me as if it were not me speaking,
as if the sounds were born as nakedly
tressed as Athene,
unincubated in their first fragile moments,
untended after by a loving overseer,
unguided by lighted road markers toward
their destination before being committed
to the execution of the soft palate.
I was given a name. For this phenomenon
is one wholly unfamiliar to me.
It was called.
I heard. (I'm not. But I could be.
Sometimes.)
To be.
(I already am.)
April 23, 2021
