Butterfly Dreams

Never again was Butterfly Caterpillar
Showtime advertised “House of Lies” on turnstiles
Crept into the city’s creeping caves

Eyes compounded the floral beauty by a multitude of factors
Could take in only Flower
In ecstasy and pain
Butterfly flew away, fly away home
And dreamt Butterfly was a man.

The Man awoke, dazed, tummy full of butterflies
A woman lay beside him, flat on the bed
Wisped away her hair and gazed thoughtfully down at her
He fled the scene again,
soaked up cigarettes in the early light to stamp out the smell of her, the smell of everything, he had a very good nose, and chose to deafen it amongst the garbage of human life.
No more countrysides he thought,
Concrete
Block,
Man made things that didn’t smell too good, too much or at all.

He recalled whispering into trees as a boy,
Left them bare, let the secrets trickle out in the wind
There was nothing for him now but living a man’s life
Woke in the morning thinking of butterflies and recalled a fat life munching on every leaf he could find, that was gone now, or no, it was just an imagination, playing on in his head, it never happened.  He worked hard and sucked another cigarette down to help the dead stay dead.

Butterfly eyed Flower’s petals but out from periphery came the look of leaves and hungry, thought to munch, munch, munch.  Couldn’t stand the thought, crept in closer and licked the stamen, and on down, down, down, down to the sweetness Flower kept deep within the petal grove.  ’twas grand.

He had tasted and smelled many things, ate, drank and sniffed everything he could get his face near enough to do so and so thought himself a knower of a great many things.  It didn’t matter though, in the world of man he was not a butterfly, that was a dream, no, he was just a man.  Must learn numbers and reason and letters and why’s and where’s and who’s.  Took stock of his surroundings and went to work at an ad agency, a mad man among men.

Butterfly lamented and spoke to an Endless, dream, Butterfly only dreamt in death, but man dreamt every night.  A thousand lives Butterfly would live, as a man, a million more as Butterfly.  Sometimes he was an emperor, sometimes he was a child, some dreams he was going to war, some dreams he was in love.  Forever though on a path of dreams as yet unaccomplished, some destination he would never, in time, meet.  On the eve of success Butterfly would wake and live a life wandering, searching, through leaves and trees for that Flower that seemed to to make the journey worth it.  Sometimes Butterfly would find Flower, rejoice, and calling to the heavens leave every care away to rest wings upon petaled bliss.  At night hunted by demons beaked in the black, snapped off by the wings and chewed awake as man.  At times there was nothing to be found and floated on into the south and arose with the Sun as a son recovering like a whip from it’s crack.

Secrets work in mysterious ways…