Lady Lepidoptera

My chrysalis was not one of silk and thread –

a sensory deprivation chamber within which I was immune

to sticks and stones; rather, it was figurative.

I wove it beneath the fluorescent lights of doctors’ offices.

I wove it within sterile operating rooms – on gurneys, against white

sheets that bloom red petals. I wove it upon the psychiatrist’s couch.

This is not smoke and mirrors – this is me –

the real me, all of me. When you peel back the white gauze,

does the porcelain brilliance of my finely-crafted visage shock you?

No, no – do not be alarmed, if you can help it –

though I am used to the stares, the murmurs as I pass, the confused

conjecture cracking through the curious crowds.

You may marvel at me, and rightly so – but look with your eyes,

not your hands or mouths – look, but do not touch. To do so is extra.

A monarch’s random could not afford to caress my iridescence.

Father, do you see your ideal son now, withered to a hollow husk

on the underside of some leaf? Mother, can you meet my gaze – my face

a kaleidoscope in which you see your own splintered reflection?

With gleaming scissors you snip away the festering bandages,

hoping to see a cadaver, all mummy flesh and dust in the sarcophagus –

yet here I am: technicolor Egyptian queen, imago of dreams. Behold!

This is my glamour instar, now that I have shed the cocoon

of crystalized pain that chained me. But metamorphosis comes with

a price: transcendence brought on by pain, perfection from blood and tears.

World, you have tried to trap me, confine me to a jar upon your shelf

where my life would be an observable public spectacle – but, like a virus,

I am adaptable. I will always find a way to reinvent myself – to fly.

#thevenuscomplex #poetry #poem #butterfly