To The Butterfly On My Windowsill

I’m staring in wonderment with a cup of tea in my hand, overlooking a fence that’s torn apart and tangled in vines. It’s a quiet morning, and the singing of birds can be heard echoing throughout the silence. There’s a serenity coursing through me as I admire your unexpected presence, those electric blue wings with black edges illuminated as they catch the sunlight.

These thoughts of mine have been racing for the past week, and your visit has been the only time they’ve managed to slow down. Now I find myself squinting with my nose up against the glass, my pupils tracing those intricate details: the pattern you effortlessly parade as it contrasts with the gray and emerald backdrop of my backyard, the perfect blend of blue and black leaving nature’s creatures in envy, the way your wings slowly flutter to the soft breeze.

If only I could learn to be as present as you.

Your very existence has emerged from the darkest of days, and now you paint the sky with such vibrant colors, bringing smiles to the faces of those lucky enough to be enthralled by your visit. The freedom which your life revolves around allows you to flutter unconfined between the greenery, resting for a moment on a branch to admire your surroundings. If only you knew the happiness you bring when you land on a child’s skin, when you fly in a person’s line of sight when they’re praying for a sign, when someone like me is having a morning in need of beauty and your rarity blesses my eyes.

Your transformation is truly inspiring, and it happened without you knowing any different. So now you stand on my windowsill, unbeknownst of just how many of us can relate to you, or at least hope to. Indefinitely wrapped in overshadowing darkness, dissolving everything that you are and leaving behind your first life, making it through a discomfort necessary for your evolution, until one day those wings you’ve grown set you free into the world.

We’re all looking for someone, for something, to relate to us in our journey of healing and finding ourselves. Inspiration comes to us in many forms; but there’s something about admiring a creature in its most natural form existing peacefully, confidently, oblivious to its beauty and transformation, and just how much its simple existence can bring so much happiness and awe to those around them—especially someone like me, sitting with a cup of tea, staring out my window with thoughts managing to slow down, if only for a minute.