and here's a poem from 1997:

Mask of the Butterfly

fragile strength
painted
on translucent flight
with whispered wings
floating
through the mist
landing for a
moment
with unassuming grace
fleeing too quickly
for possession
to be made


My first tattoo was a butterfly, for a very specific reason. I was told once that if you touch a butterfly's wings, it will die. The best way to enjoy them is to just pause and smile and let them flutter on by. So when I got my first tattoo at 18 (16 years ago for anyone interested) I wanted something that would represent all the people who had (and would later) come into my life for a moment, staying long enough to light it up in some way and then eventually moving on.

Good-byes are hard, but some people aren't meant to stay in your life forever. Here's the paradox, though: I'm the one who has never stayed. I'm the one who flies in with all my color on whispered wings, and only stays long enough to make one or two friends worth saying good-bye to. And then I leave. And I hate that. I'm tired of starting over, of trying to reinvent myself every time. And reinvent is a misnomer by the way. What I've actually been doing is uncovering the pieces of myself that, for whatever reasons, got buried long ago.

I'm ready to stop leaving, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm where I'm supposed to land.

And what will happen when I finally stop long enough to let someone touch my wings?