Where Do You Keep Your Butterflies?

We all keep our little sins hidden,
All of us have something deep,
Something primal...

Written into Us,
Written for Us,
Written by Us.

It comes and goes and comes and goes.
We tick the tocks off our flesh clocks,
Tally marking our failures.
It is a ritual of the utmost importance,
Signifying nothing,
Yet revolving around the lock
That the key will fit.

Delicately,
Sinews are rewritten
And as we are bitten,
Blood kisses its missed lover.
Did you find your vein? Ha.

We are jaded fools!
Emeralds searching for a brighter shade to be,
And in our lofty aspirations we are doomed,
Doomed forever to be blood diamonds

Our skin is a pallet;
We are artisians. So tell me little girl,
Where do you keep your butterflies?

Butterflies represent a kind of freedom we long for.
Like us, they begin life grounded.
Filthy creatures,
They are forced to thrive amongst the earth,
The intolerable earth
For love and kindess and freedom.

Once the young one realizes that all is not golden,
It seeks shelter within itself,
Cascading a web of lies and stringing along all those taught not to listen.
Surely, a few see within
Surely, a few care not.

With time, scars form,
And permanent art is now found.
The artist, an ever fickle mongrel,
Must paint again and again on the landscape;
Never truly content with just one more masterpiece.

With each piece of work
The metamorphasis continues.
Muses tickle the muses
And as scarlett life force thickens,
The cacoon shatters.

I daresay she draws butterflies.
I say not.
For it makes horrid thoughts easier to imagine them the way I do.

Is this paper or skin?
Parchment is a duality;
A sort of double entrendre of macabre arts.
So, to myself I say, write on!
Let blood and ink swell together!
Colors matter not. Blood will only help to thicken the message of my words.

Today, I drew my last butterfly.
For, now I am free.

...Perhaps one day she'll put down that carver and write for me instead.