Butterfly Scar

Butterfly, as you emerge,
Your bleeding ink on
My skin, like paper
Soaked in milk
At night.

Oh, how she cries,
Alone in darkness.
Butterfly, you
Are her only companion
The flutter-
Beats of your breast
Penetrating nothing but delicate
Beads on the wrist
Of a tree.
Brittle limbs bending
Almost
But not quite far
Enough to break.

Butterfly,
Accept my apologies
As I lament
Your subtle death
By Blue
Tile and water.
I shed your flutter-
Heartbeat wings,
Cerulean energy and
Replaced you in effigy
Onto the tissue paper
That melts away when
I bathe.

Scarlet warriors
Trample the fragile
Yellowed and paper-
Thin membrane of
My being.

Butterflies idly
Float on my cotton
Milky breaths,
Until together we
Release the tension in
Wings and fingertips.
Butterfly, are you truly
Backwards evidence of
Fluttering chest-beats?

Oh, how I apologize, for
I deprive you of
Your cotton breeze
Until
Together we must melt
Away.