Metamorphosis is terrifying

Just ask the butterfly

Or rather the caterpillar

Who

Still munching on a last leaf

Enters the cocoon

I lay my head in grass

Whispering

How do you do it

So dogged

Determined

Small scrunched up bug

Hunching your way in, you shrug

And as you pull the zipper over your head

I imagine you said

It’s what I do

To go forward

Onwards

Upwards

Flight, takes wings

Where are yours?

Will you grow them yourself?

Do you imagine

Butterflies ask someone else?

No

What we make

We make ourselves.

But how do you deal with uncertainty, questions, anxiety? You haven’t done this before – how do you even know that you’ll know how to fly when you get there?

And the caterpillar replies

I’ve still got my gut you know

And my brain

My heart

I’m transforming into a work of art

All these other questions

Become redundant

Does the painter interrogate the paint?

What are you made of

Where will you go

How do you know which brush and stroke?

The canvas would stare back

Mutely

The only way to tranform is to just do it!

After that the caterpillar was silent

And so was I

I lay in the grass listening

But the caterpillar did not scream

Not even a hiss

Yet all of his body

Was melting

And rebuilding anew

How do I become brave like that small stoic creature?

When my human brain is my only teacher?

And the grass whispered

Faith

As a storm cloud brewed rain overhead

And I guess

I understood then

That’s all we get

And in the end

It won’t matter whether you stayed a ground dweller

Or chose to rise higher

It’s the wings you build

That mark you as a flyer