b u t t e r f l y

I've never been very good at interpretations. Things always tend to get bigger and more complex than they should be. I can't look at a poem about a butterfly and understand immediately that what the author meant to convey was justice and innocence and the fleeting nature of life and beauty.

because sometimes a butterfly is just a butterfly. a two-winged creature that floats in the wind and lands softly in a place to rest. Sometimes a butterfly is simplicity; sometimes the meaning of a butterfly is its nature. A butterfly's life is spent kissing flowers, not caring whether it comes in contact with any of the right people or metaphors. And in the morning when a butterfly flits by my vision, I don't see beauty itself, but instead I see a beautiful butterfly.

I don't like to pick things apart and squeeze the meaning out of every fiber; sometimes it is the most meaningful to understand that beauty comes from recognition of the whole. Personally, i think the word butterfly does a fine job of grasping the beauty of the creature. Not because the letters put together form the most wonderful word of all, but because I know what a butterfly is, and when i hear her name the most beautiful butterfly i can imagine comes flitting through my mind. And maybe she is not blue like the author intended. And maybe she flies much to quickly and maybe she does not land on the most perfect flower of all, but she is a creature of my mind and that is the most beautiful thing. She does not have to symbolize anything bigger than what she is, and i suppose that she is the one who makes it the most difficult for me to grasp the picture of someone else's imagined owner of the name butterfly.

my second favorite time (after sunday evenings at about five-o-clock of course) is about eleven thirty on an especially warm summer night.

The warmth of the air at about eleven thirty on an especially warm summer night is the kind that feeds the imagination. It smells like grass and it sounds quiet and loud all at the same time. As i stare out from the safety of my porch into the darkness i smile and take a deep breath, wondering how all of a sudden i can taste the feelings of being a teenager.
The sadness is quiet, but it is comforting. It reminds me that i am young and i am innocent, and i have much to learn. The warm orange light from the streetlamp lies thick on my skin, and i find that if i stare long enough without blinking i can imagine myself anywhere in the world, with any worry and any hand to hold.
It's funny, each and every time i have sat softly next to the darkness and imagined, i have never had a clear image of what i would most like to happen next. I simply know that i am in a standstill and i have forever been the type of person to run when the dynamic kisses the static.

the darkness is the most wonderful place to cry. you close your eyes and let a single tear slide down your face, and when you open them, there could be a soft hand to wipe that tear away.
Or maybe you are one of those girls who chases the hand away. That's okay too, because now you have a reason to cry. Before you closed your eyes to let the tear escape, there was a hand to brush your hair behind your ears, but now instead of being there to protect your face from the waves of the ocean you must learn to cry peacefully as you embrace the emptiness of solitude.
maybe you haven't done anything wrong. Maybe life has been an unfair mistress to you, and you cannot fathom why. But whatever her reasoning, life has pushed you down and before you are able to pick yourself back up you must wring out all of the salty wet wrong.

I have always wished to take up smoking at about 11:30 on an especially warm summer night. Not because i want to feel tobacco entering my body, but simply because i want to turn my head to the sky and blow a fresh wave of unhealthy angst up at the stars. They mock me in their infinity; it is ridiculous to be able to stare in a simple direction and feel so insignificant.
would it be a simple comfort to have something in my hands? that if every so often i could bring it to my lips and inhale a little more poison of independence? Because after all, smoking is an adult decision and being an adult calls for the rickety shaking of hands that comes from making big decisions.

I don't think i ever really realized anything about myself until 11:30 on an especially warm summer night. Because as i stare out into the darkness of the night, i learn that i am a human being with beautiful little flaws, and hopes to fill an ocean, and regret cuddled closely next to my heart. i long for  touch, yet i am unsure what kind. i long to see the world, yet as i try to stand and fall into the intoxicated sky i suddenly understand that the only reason things look so big is because i have made myself small. The way to understand my world is to understand my heart and in order to make that leap i stand up and retreat back to the familiarity of inside.
Tomorrow it will be day, but tomorrow it will also be 11:30 on an especially warm summer night.

wind chime (trying to get back into poetry)

I have a dolphin wind chime hanging from the ceiling of my room.
It's blue, the three wind chimes have silver stripes, and the dolphins hang from almost invisible string.
It's made of fragile glass, and i remember many times being told that i needed to be careful with it.
Be gentle, Emily. 
It's fragile, Emily. 
Don't break it, Emily. 
I got it somewhere in North Carolina, on one of the famed trips to Sunset Beach with my family.

It's one of those souvenirs you are so proud of at first.
you must show everyone, but be careful; no one should touch it, no one should spoil it's gentle chime

I was so anxious to hang it up in my room.
Since my mom told me it was too fragile to hang up outside, i chose to keep it in the safety of my bedroom ceiling.
It has hung there ever since.


i think the strangest thing of all is that
it is a dolphin wind chime
yet it has never been kissed
by wind or water

Her eyelids are drawn open by a stream of sunlight breaking through the cracks in the blinds of her bedroom window. She blinks a few times before realizing where she is: in a familiar place with a familiar feeling in her stomach. It is morning, and it is a new day.

She takes care brushing her teeth and picking out her clothes, wanting desperately only to make a quiet impression. One last look in the mirror and her flaws are masked enough by her hopeful smile that she leaves the bathroom content. Not happy, never happy. Her personality is not one that can accept happiness. Happiness is too fragile an emotion, she tells herself. Happiness cannot be put in a jar and saved for a rainy day, happiness cannot last long enough to escape sadness, and therefore she finds peace in contentment. 

To be content means to look forward to the future, to understand the past, to appreciate the present. It means to close one's eyes and realize a soft smile in the thoughts of small things. It never gives butterflies, but then again, you haven't been one to chase a butterfly as it flies past, have you? 

She walks out the door with enough worries to keep her contentment company. Life is all about balance, she quietly tells herself. It is about accepting the negativity, understanding it, but also pushing it down just deep enough to let a little hope escape. Not much, because hope is a dangerous thing to carry around. It brings the butterfly ideas, it opens doors that it cannot promise will remain that way long enough to let one's entire being through. Who could ever learn to love the feeling of being out of control? life is never fully in the hands of those who live it, but hoping instead of facing reality is just dangerous. 

She goes through the motions of a regular day, still unsure about whether she loves or hates the routine of her life. The people she met yesterday are the same as the people she met today, yet the ability of their opinions to change keeps her just on the edge of feeling comfortable. 

That's the thing about people, isn't it? You cannot read their minds, and it hurts to realize that they could be thinking many awful things behind the wall of their eyes. It is also quite possible for them to be thinking wonderful things about you, but then again, you never really have been one to choose optimism, have you? 

Each day she is fascinated by the quickness of life. It moves as if nothing else matters. movement is the only thing that takes its mind; anything else is irrelevant. sometimes she wonders if she can keep up. Is she really ready for change? she must be as it appears everyone else already is. 

Growth is what takes her mind the furthest. Imagination consumes her as she remembers yesterday and how it has passed her and changed her. she opens her mouth, almost ready to speak about how tomorrow will leave today breathless, but then she remembers that she is not yet in tomorrow, and there is nothing she can do to change that. And yet, when today yanks her from her reverie, she cannot help but wonder how she has come in time from point a to point b, and how she has become a letter so far from the rest of the alphabet. 

That is what you feel, isn't it? you feel different than you did a few hours ago, and you wonder if it is only you that life is changing, or if you are the only static thing in a world full of change. with so many points on the graph paper squares of the universe, it is difficult to believe that small changes in your own frame of thinking will get you away from your destined path of points. On which point will you end your days? it is impossible to tell that today, and tomorrow looks also like a bleak day for fortune-tellings.