Elegy for a Butterfly

Elegy for a Butterfly is a collection of poetry, prose, and photography that is woven together to tell a story of love, loss, and letting go. Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and everywhere else books are sold.

the first time i gazed into your eyes, it was like staring at the sun. now i know nothing else but you – the last beautiful thing i will ever see – blind to anyone else who could ever be.

did you feel my pulse through your fingertips? because i felt yours beating through mine. it was the rhythm of our souls making music, and i could have sworn to the heavens that it was the start of something beautiful.

god made the air. then he made lungs. and at last, just for me, he made you so i would know what it was to breathe.

my love, my sweet, my true...you were not just a star in the sky. you were the whole wide sky entirely. the vast expanse of my gaze swirling in shapes, colors, and sounds. and i tried so desperately to transcend mere words so that i could express what it really was in my heart to say: something a thousand times the power of "i love you." but i failed to do so every time. i fail to do so every time.

swinging in circles, it was a miracle we ever came to dance at all. orated in puzzles, it was the oracle who foretold our rise and fall. hands held unified, fused and forever mystified by the bonds we forged. but the waves came to claim the wind and drowned what once emerged.

there was a whole ocean of you that lived inside my chest but i had not the faintest notion it stirred within me until you were gone and the wild tide of its salted waters crashed through the shore of my crestfallen eyes.

there is so much extraordinary suffering in the dark spaces of this sullied world. who am i to know such joy? why should i ask for more? a true man does not demand more than what he deserves. it is only fair then that i should lose her. reasonable to expect our sun would set. that a night should come where my lips would never meet hers again.

it was not a perfect picture of love i was after. it was just you. whether we came with a dented frame or cracked glass or torn corners or sun stained film, all i ever wanted was you. indeed, we were flawed but we did so beautifully fit in each other’s arms.

in the clatter of a hundred talking, i can hear your voice emerge from it even though you are not there. i am reminded of you at moments least expected and it is as if my heart stops and beats faster all at once. and just like that, it will disappear like warm breath on a starlit winter night.

the earth was never as soft as it was when i laid against it with you to imbibe the oceans of sky, which imbued us renewed with a love we knew was true. enamored by the midnight’s hue, our fingers traced an astral path to a time where our vision for each other could blur askew into one harmonious line. and the air was never as sweet as the swallow i drew from the kiss of your lips. and the moon never illumined as brightly as when reflected from our eyes. and never will there be a moment that i will cherish more than that singular expanse of infinity. you. me. we. us.