beauticians for bugs

to become the butterfly

the caterpillar must

hide

and crack

have its insides spill out

and become totally liquid

unstable and unmanageable

for one who

doesn’t know growth

the dance looks like destruction

and the butterfly must

appear as an angel of death

rising from its coffin

*

the loudest sound

comes just before

the string breaks

*

there isn’t a future

in writing for writing

isn’t a future of there

but herein

*

i was told when

i was younger that

hope was not a strategy

and in the coming of age

that follows unplanned but inevitably

i still hope

it isn’t true