Butterfly Wings

Dear Butterfly:

Of all the creatures that exist I must admit you intrigue me most. I'd say, to live once, yet live twice, is a privilege so few know. But you butterfly do, to have lived the first portion of your life sluggishly squirming about on the ground; bound to the earth, to morph so that you glide through the sky as if you were weightless only makes me wonder if you were born knowing you'd soar one day? Do you patiently endure life as a caterpillar because you anticipate the receipt of your wings? Is it something you are prepped for as soon as you're born? Is it the halo you yearn to be crowned with after a job well done as a dutiful caterpillar? Is it your after life? Your heaven? Your dream? How do you adjust to this life of newly acquired wings? And as if I hadn't asked you enough questions already, the most pressing of all to me, the one I wonder the most is, do you ever think back to the days when you were but a caterpillar? As you float delicately through the air, does your mind ever wander back to the soil you tread upon? Are you tormented with memories of your cocooned days? The days that darkness was all you could see and even the body you grew so accustomed to was transformed. Do you relive those days and are taunted by flashbacks? Did you ever grow weary, giving up the notion that one day you'd fly? I only ask because one day while I watched your wings flutter, you reminded me of my possibilities. You reminded me that I too can soar though it seems I may have crawled through the depths of dirt and despair. You inspired me because I'm convinced that anything that is granted the privilege of soaring would be too enamored with this newly acquired higher form of existence to even entertain thoughts of what used to be. The thrill of flying with butterfly's wings can't be subdued by even the most horrific memory of a once caterpillar led life. And I presume the transformation to be so powerful it can erase even the memory that one was anything other than what he/she is now.