There are butterflies in your stomach?
They flutter when you see him;
a furious blush paints your face,
raw brush strokes and
unadulterated emotion
leaving behind a rich pigment
known as cluelessness.
Mix in a bit of pallor,
and it's embarrassment.
They beat their mosaic-printed wings
with a stumble of your feet
or a failed exam,
a 68 in Applied Physics
when you should have pulled a crisp 69.
They find Eden-tier gardens with excitement
on par with that of a pajama-clad kid on Christmas morning,
and I bet you relish in the feeling.
But little did you know,
Miss Little Innocent sitting there
with her head weighed down  
with her heavy thoughts and knock-off Docs
pigeon-toed in a less than symbol
(don't you know that, sixty-eight?),
had elephants,
                          prides of lions,
                                                    *******,
                                                                ­­         the whole savanna
housed inside her ribcage,
bones rattling from deafening roars;
a cognizant mind stumbling from the seismic waves
of leviathan footsteps,
shaking the ground she walks on.
The pain in her chest,
the god awful attempts to provide
for her own microcosmic ecosystem
wracked her frail frame without mercy.
She continued to bounce her knees
and answer your questions
with breathy, exhausting syllables,
but you put yourself out of commission.
You write and write about your butterflies,
but think about how
it must feel to have to accept
lionesses gnawing on your shoulderblades.
Would you ask for your beautiful ******* back?