Morph

I don’t understand people
when I most need to or why a red sky
in the evening is somehow a good thing.
I mean, I know it’s meant for those out on the ocean,
but what does any of that have to do with me?
In this land locked overcrowded swath
of the exploited, all the waves we see
are from the heat burning into the darkness
of the highway tar, juxtaposed against
forever golden stripes.
A friend told me once about a time
her little sister taped pictures to the outside of a jar
for a caterpillar she was taking care of.
She wanted to see it change so badly,
but when the time came, and the wings
broke open the membrane of the chrysalis,
she cried because she knew it had to hurt.
There is wisdom in that observation though,
and it’s good that she could realize
there’s a payment due for anything to change.
Normally that’s something that has to be learned
through some kind of self inflicted trauma, or even worse
a kind of monster in the night.
She found it though, in the most rudimentary place,
the first chance she could really,
and in that moment when the insect
was peeling the dead bits off its stained glass appendages,
she realized that the truth of the world was an ugliness
that gave everyone who fought it back
a chance out on the other side with everything
they’d need to finally fly.