Beautiful Imprisonment

My cocoon is smothering me

slowly closing in,

hardening around me,

sealing me within.

I can’t escape it,

can’t call out for help.

I sit here smothering,

as you wait from without looking in,

watching as I grow, change, and prepare,

to become all I can be,

all I was meant to be.

I scream and scream from within my hold,

knowing you can’t hear, yet desperate to tell you,

you don’t know me.

Don’t know how I think, how I feel, or react.

You see only what I’ve allowed you to see.

Your ideal isn’t really me.

You say im sweet, when I can be so bittersweet,

you say im innocent, when I can be so jaded

you say im good, when I can be so bad.

You say im the simple monarch butterfly,

but that’s about to change, im about to change.

I’ve made up my mind

the times finally here

my transformation complete.

My wings push out in haste as I shatter open my

cocoon

breaking into the world anew.

I shake off my wings, revealing my true form,

to the world, and to you.

You intake a sharp breath, shock plain on your face,

as your eyes flutter from wing to wing.

I’m a breathtaking, beautiful, and a butterfly,

but not the one you wanted me to be.

My body is solid black,

while my wings, although patterned like the monarch,

are completely different.

They are a swirl of colours,

purple and blue, yellow and orange, red and green,

yet seamlessly mixed together creating a whole.

With sympathy I smile,

and take flight on confident wings

I leave behind my old facade, by broken cocoon,

and join the others as they swirl about the sky.

A swish of colours standing out like a beacon in

the night

A young butterfly,

a new butterfly,

a special butterfly.

Rare amongst so many monarchs

I’m unique

I’m true.

finally me.

~Written May 23rd, 2002, revisited Sept 29th, 2008~