The last time I saw you, I was the splitting image of the Butterfly Project.
I thought pen could save me.
In middle school, they impress upon you so much about ink poisoning,
But not enough about what to use besides ink.
I need the butterflies on my wrist, I say.
I’ve been doing some research, and I found that
Butterflies can see the color red.

I tell you they tumbled down my arms.
The butterflies, they somersault
Over red crevices in my wrist and palm;  
Bat their wings like eyelashes holding back tears;
Rush air over wounds with their wings
Because oxygen heals.

I never said I didn’t like the taste of oxygen.
It just wasn’t my flavor yet.

Maybe the reason I like film photography so much
Is because an author named Janet Fitch once said she felt like
An underdeveloped photograph,
Her image rising to the surface.
Maybe my photograph is overexposed.
My photograph is of the whiteness in my mind when I hurt myself,
And I need chemicals like fixer
To bring an image to the front and center.
The rule of thirds divided me into two parts self-hatred
And one part hatred for hating myself:
Perhaps there’s one chemical I need to soak my brain in;
Perhaps I missed the perma-wash step
And I didn’t fully rinse away the negative solution on my film.

And if I am to talk about steps,
Then I am a spiral staircase that hasn’t had the steps built in yet
Because I don’t understand how to attach them.
I’ve forgotten how to hold onto railings.
My palms are splintered because I land on them when I fall.

Now I never said I wasn’t worth recovery.
I just couldn’t say that I was.

I am the embodiment of not wanting to get on the roller coaster because I’m scared,
but also being the roller coaster myself.
I just don’t know how to stop.

I felt at home with you in your empty apartment,
where your mother called me “darling” and “honey” for vacuuming,
and I sat on the floor in the middle of your living room,
imagining I had just bought my own place.
I listen as you furnish the rest of your life out loud to me.
I say we should build safe houses around each other
and call it home.

Now this is where I tell you,
your kisses are like warm honey.
And I don’t even know what that tastes like,
but I swear that is the right simile.
You are made from poetry.
You are tightropes
Overhead, knotted together.
You are the netting beneath the act.
Somehow you balanced me when all I ever felt like I was doing
was crashing into you.
I say ‘be prepared to be tackled when I am happy’
because you are like throwing the front door of my house open,
before sprinting into my yard to peer at the first flowers of spring growing.
My heart slows down to a jog recovery when you’re around.

So I tell you,
your kisses are like foggy breath in the winter.
They’re the frost on my dad’s car in the morning.
Frost like the dusting on my bangs when I was little
and walked into elementary school with wet curly hair.

I tell you,
your kisses are like going on a plane for the first time,
but also like getting off at the airport in your hometown.
Sure, you enjoyed the flight.
But you’re happy to be home.

Why do we pour ourselves into anyone
Or anything, if not to forget?
And why do we do anything at all,
If not to escape; why, if life
Is so hard, do we fight to live it?
Do we find beauty in its faults,
Or love in its intricacies; is there
Some state of grace we can achieve,
Or are we all merely surviving
Through our allocated existence?
Can there ever be more?
Is happiness real, or only
A dream of humanity; did we
Invent it, to give some meaning to
The years spent crawling on this earth?
If we are so evolved, why are we
Also so entrenched in destruction;
The using up of our resources,
The race towards our own ends?
Are we ever truly alive?

When the life inside of me begins to wither
like the leaves on winter trees,
And my breath begins to slow,
I'll use the very lasts gasps to say
how I get high to the smell of rain,
And that sunflowers
make me smile so naturally.
I'll say how I like the time spent alone,
And the nights I can't seem to find sleep.
I'll talk of the chills that overcome my body
when crashing waves reach my feet,
And of the beautiful ryhmes
always running through my head.
I'll reveal how I'm secretly drawn to the cold,
And how summer is my favorite season.
I'll tell them how the woods call my name
as I walk by,
I need their mystery.
And with my final bit of life,
I'll say how above all,
I'm happiest when I'm dancing.