Butterfly Poem

You told me that when I kissed you in the street you felt butterflies and I laughed. Not because I was delighted I could give you butterflies, although I was, but because at 19, everything is made of butterflies. It's like that one episode of steven universe where Ruby and Sapphire chase so many butterflies that it looks like the sky is going to explode. I don't have the language to describe the beauty of Aravipa Orchard but that doesn't mean I didn't know I felt something. The closest I can find to to words is the feeling of all my insides being torn apart as gently as a bow string caressing a violin. I can't hit a note for my life but I know a symphony when I hear one. And no, I don't think when I see the sunset I'm in love and yes, to flatten all you are down into a splash of colors spilled across the sky reduces you to a silly two dimensional decoration. You are beautiful because you are real. Maybe you're not quite whole but our broken pieces together let enough light through to watch the sunset. If you only knew how many sunsets you look like maybe you would understand how measly a few butterflies seem. You are thunder and it's not true what they say about lighting because it just keeps string me. Everything is butterflies because I can't even feel the solid ground beneath me and if I'm not afraid of falling it's only because I'm already in mid air with the wind streaming across my face. I am a butterfly in a hurricane. I'm the clouds chasing the sun in the sunset, desperate to feel it's sliver lining again. I'm the hot, still, throbbing air before the thunderstorm, desperate for the storm to come and release the tension with explosions of air and light. And yes, I mean sex, but I mean more than sex. I mean butterflies and sunsets and feelings I'll never, never have the words for.