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.

Nature of Dreams

Dear Dream:

Would you really be so cruel as to lodge yourself deep in my heart; if you had no way of manifesting yourself in reality?
Would you be so menacing as to inspire me with such great hope that you'd eventually be mine; and then crush those hopes with the weight of being nothing more than an untruth?
How could you dream; you that flood my heart until the desire for you becomes so great that the only release for you can be found in my tears; turn bitter with anguish and disappointment of letting me down?
You, dream, my greatest childhood friend, when I had yet to be marred by the harsh realities of life have now, it seems, become my greatest foe.

I tried to shut you out, dream because you failed me
You whispered in my ear and then you fled
I tried to chase you but you seemed to slip through my fingers like sand
And every time I thought I had grasped you
Every time I thought I could attain you, you vanished into thin air
Abandoning me to nothing more than feelings of deceit
Complacency and doubt replaced you
So eventually I shut you out
But here you are again
I thought I had gotten rid of you
Thought I managed to erase all memory of you
But you reemerge making me want you more than I ever did before
Although the desire for you is familiar

Dream, I must admit I'm afraid of you
Afraid to give myself to you as completely as I have in time past
Afraid that what you are offering me is but an illusion
An insatiable desire for you that will leave me any thing but filled
Leave me running on a treadmill, exerting all I have to, in the end find I've gotten no where
But I'm even more afraid that if I let you go this time, I'll be letting go of my only chance
My only chance at escaping this existence as a nameless, unknown frequent
I wonder if your reemergence is you giving me another chance to chase you
Maybe it wasn't you that let me down after all
But I, you.
Dream, will you once and for all, show me that you are much more than an unrealistic, exaggerated, exalted hope?
I've come to think some things of you, dream,
Only you can help me change my perceptions of you
Or is it I?
Am I the one that alone can change the perception of you that you, dream, are for children alone?
So I'll make myself vulnerable to you again, dream
Certainly you would not have tagged me it
If you had no intentions of being caught by me
And in turn making me the very thing you are!