Thank you.*

Such abused words.

Too often they are a lie.
Lists of names barely remembered,
slurred together in a hasty speech,
a meaningless slip of arrogance.

I had no audience,
no beautiful faces
like drowning lights,
yellow eyes in a smoky room.
Fearful and cold,
I wrote them alone,
birthed in my mind
by desperation and giddiness,
those flighty muses.

But you were there,
my euchre girls
and boating boys,
and I held you
tightly to my chest.

I release them now
my handful of
teardrop butterflies,

And they fly home to you.