I once convinced myself that I longed for the power of change. I promised myself that I liked its fickle flavor and its fleeting nature. I did not always like what I had, so I loved change because it promised something different. Now, change is something I revile. I don’t even know it yet.
When the hurricane threatens a tranquil summer and wipes away the things I’ve been building for years, this is when I grow nervous. What will the damage reveal?
My persnickety back and forth. Where do I love to be? It’s in a place that’s not real: the magical realm of my creative seasons that breathe pretty life into my lungs. That leaves the other seasons. Those that leave me brittle and gray.
“Wherever you go, there you are.” Nothing scares me more. I can’t shake that bad feeling which creeps through my veins, rests heavy on my chest, marinates in my mind. Change won’t make it go away so easily.
In the company of others, I am hardly in the company of myself. Forever conscious of my conceding. Do I even trust myself? Because in the quiet, I slap myself in the sterile silence of rage. What do I do with all of it? I tweak myself, feel a certain quick sand that is rising from within just to bring me back down. I cringe when my words come out garbled, maybe I only feel that way. I can’t tell. I rinse off and try again.
I’ve become a butterfly who I like very much. It took much to get here in the way that life happens, I suspect, and in other ways that have made me a little harder, a little more agitated, dampened.
What happens when this ends? Will I regret my side-stepping ways, running from vulnerability, or my justified mindset? I am just so mad all of the time. I could break glass with my thoughts, kill flowers with my dreams. I feel so insane that I am normal.
And when this is over, I’ll be a caterpillar scrounging for something to hold onto. Again. They’ll take this, this that I love even if I sometimes condemn it. I am subject to a forever and forced metamorphosis thrill.
Will it be okay? No, I mean it. Or will the mind moan for a you who is not real but could be? Will it find the place where the creativity plants its roots and doesn’t threaten to wilt when summer returns? You must promise me something! Change must mean something! I need to know my worries were for nothing.