You told me I was a monarch. I thought you meant
Queen.
You talked of chrysalis and metamorphosis (words I committed to heart because of their beauty on my lips but also because a thesaurus never has enough words for change).
You told me that you would plant milkweed in every garden (carry seeds in your pockets
just in case).
I think of change and remember the night we drank beer in an empty bar, paint splatters dripping down the wall. Smoking hash from a pipe, eating chili from a pot, and drinking whiskey from a flask.
When he hugged me, I felt certain I’d visit Wonderland again (but inhaled his stale cigarette cologne
nonetheless).
But he promised changes, sincerity in his black-brown eyes. Didn’t he know I was the queen of changes?
(Even hearts could betray us for thirty pieces of silver.)
Mutable was my name. I was a poem penned in dust written on water.
For years, as a child, I dreamt of incomplete transformations. Naively, I scribbled about familiar strangers, so when a creature from another galaxy (Saturn rings around his pupils) greeted me, a rush of hiraeth flooded me.
I thought I’d fall over from the sheer gravity of it all, but the only constant I’ve found is we’re constantly in flux (perpetually changing). We’re like a mad assortment of Euler’s disks — spinning, spinning,
spinning.
The changes in who I was and who I am are monumental, but all I hear is the fluttering of kaleidoscopic wings as I set forth for a galaxy where I can inhale and exhale
freely. Not under the watchful scrutiny of the world and all her inhabitants
because change is on the horizon yet.
Isabelle Palerma 