The Golden Butterflies
It starts
before you touch the door,
a gilded frequency,
like a secret with teeth.
You enter,
and the yellow butterflies
enter with you,
a thousand mouths of wanting,
not beauty, not omen,
but appetite.
They don’t bite.
They do worse.
They cover.
They turn the air into weight,
a living curtain
closing around the bed,
brushing my skin
with the heat of a fever
that you call devotion.
But a fire this hot
changes the physics of a room.
The closer you press
with the gravity of your earth,
the more I draw my light
into the trees
and make a wilderness of myself.
You call it longing.
I recognize possession,
gold held too tightly
until it bruises.
So, I answer you
with the silence of the sky,
and with distance
that does not explain itself.
In the center
of the shining swarm,
I become
the heart
that will not melt.
I wrap myself
in cool black linen,
and where you try to hold me,
the sheer heat of your desire
splits my wings.
And I slip into a dream
you cannot follow.
Weighted by the fury of the storm,
I turn away,
choosing the shadow,
where the raven lives within me,
and my mercy goes feral,
holy,
and out of reach.
Poetry and Image © Gesso Cocteau
#gessococteaupoetry
