Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Free Fallin...


So I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last poured a little bit more of myself out onto this blog.  Sheesh, I’d tell you why, but that’s a story for another day.  Right now, I’m listening to John Mayer play my favorite Tom Petty song…Free Fallin.  And it fits because I was just talking with my friend Kenya about how crazy you can feel putting your art out there, whether it be music, painting or writing.  The overwhelmed factor is pretty high, like standing on the edge of a cliff and knowing the only way out is to jump.  Free Fallin.  So after we finished our musing, I had an idea for a poem that turned into a story in two pages.  I hope you like it.

What the Butterfly Feels
“It is nice and warm in here,” she says as she snuggles deep into well worn places.
“No need to move – at all.”
But the first rip of the cocoon is often ignored. 
She thinks that if she stays really still it will go away, repair itself on its own
Or maybe no one will notice.
But the second tear is longer, louder than the first and she knows,
Something is going to change – forever.
Frightened, she hugs her crumpled wings closer
“I don’t want to leave.  I don’t need to leave,” she tells herself.
“Come out of there,” I say.  “You belong out here.”
But she is not brave; she cowers at the sound of my truth.
And when the twisting starts inside her belly, she hunkers down against the urge to move.
The inertia she’s trying to enforce splits the bottom wide open
Almost
She almost falls down.
She’s only seconds from flying
but she doesn’t know it.
She’s clinging to the sides of a familiar that has grown too small.
“But I was fine.  I was fine,” she insists with wide, disbelieving eyes.
The bottom is so far down
And her fear keeps her attention from noticing the stretching of her wings.
“But, but…but,” she says just as the fiber separating her from pure air pulls apart
One
Last
Time.
And she falls
Into everything that lies beyond
everywhere she’s ever been
“Open your eyes,” I tell her.  “You’re nowhere near the ground.”

As always, if you’re out there, thanks for reading!