The Woman I Was Hated Butterflies

Cheek sunk into the snow, a butterfly lands on the tip of her nose

mocking. It tickles while her blood trickles

and she succumbs to the ether.

***

I’m told I was born in a hospital infected with cockroaches. I cried every single day for the next two years, but on that night, I was silent.

***

My grandmother says butterflies are signs gifted from those gone. But he passed when I was five from pills and sleep

and never once have I spotted him in the beads of a broken wing.

***

My sister and I taped images of insects to the inside of

of my closet door. She watches cartoons in the playroom while

I’m kept in the closet. He finds his high. I trace the

printed pictures and watch the sun shift beneath the crack in the door, telling myself that I hate butterflies.

***

Dark blue dances like fog on a strangers bedroom wall.

When I awoke again, he was

finishing between my legs when I heard a fly crawl into my ear and call me a whore.

***

Butterflies like humidity, but I fled Texas

because it made my hair too big. I refused to be a rodeo gal

with blades at my heels, so instead

I hid them behind my tongue with the wasps, and walked west.

***

In college, I met a woman with white hair at a bar who had moths tattooed over her nipples. She explained it to be a show of power.

***

I learn of a new phobia: Lepidopterophobia. Say that ten times fast and

tell me it’s not real.

***

Starting AA, I’m told to think of objects or places that calm me when in a state of distress. She rambles her list; the mountains, Waikiki when it’s quiet, chocolate, butterflies—

I almost puke into my straw hat.

***

There’s a spider in my bedroom I can’t kill. He evades me like I evade

my trauma and so I’ve decided to

simply leave him be. I’ll find him when we’re both ready to die.

***

No longer can I focus on anything but my anger and

the taste of tequila in my tea. Even when a ladybug lands on my thigh—it’s touch more gentle than his ever was—not can I find it’s comfort. I’m disgusting,

and so I swat it away before it drowns.

***

I leave the island and take with me the life I almost lost.

Maybe moths on my nipples

will help me remember what it means to be strong again?

***

A scorpion in my sheets tells me I can’t stay here. She cries as I leave home,

but the mountains are calling

and I’ve had enough of hiding where I’m most comfortable.

***

The cold is coming back, and with it,

maybe I’ll finally make my return. I love with him like I love lightning bugs and

Russian car crashes and once upon a time, myself.

***

Peace is coming home on snowy nights to him making love to me

while ants circle

in the kitchen. And I’m finding myself forgetting—until I find a centipede in

the sink and think of my own demons. They too, like the ants, circle.

***

I don’t write anymore. But I am

seeing things others don’t, and it makes me wonder what’s laid eggs inside my brain

to make me feel this insane.

***

I listen to a podcast of a girl who’s terrified of butterflies.

She says her phobia stems from a past life. Maybe the woman I

was hated butterflies too.

***

I dream that I’m happy. The eggs must be gone.