Butterflies

I am here,
And he is here,
And something else is here too -
That bungee jump, about-to-step-on-stage feeling.
The crucial moment, fight or flight?
The twisty, hopping, what’s-about-to-happen feeling
That they call
Butterflies.

I am there,
And he is there,
And butterflies are everywhere their wings all tangled in my hair
And, acting like I don’t much care,
I dare to touch...
But not too much.

Synapses firing and failing, I’m flailing for something to say
But “we never did too much talkin’ anyway,
And don’t think twice,” ’cause when I do I run away
And I want to stay.
I kind of like this guy,

But best I like the butterflies that tell me “Yes,
Be afraid and Be alive and Be young for once.”
The butterflies that cloud my eyes
With sugar-gem brightness
And almost hide that common sense is
Telling me: maintain pretences.
Warning me: don’t drop defences; you built the fences for times like this.

So I’ll try and pretend that the thrill’s lost,
That the butterflies died with the first frost,
That the cost was too high.
I’m trying not to show –
Trying not to see those things with fragile stained-glass-window-wings
Thronging the room from the back of my head to the front.

So, I am there.
And he is there.
The butterflies are everywhere.
And I’m still trying not to show – but no. I have to go.
I walk home to a cold bed
And turn it over in my head, the things he did and things I said,
’Cause when you pin it down, it dies,
And I must kill the butterflies.

Now this is nearly perfect ’cause I don't know how to end it, how to make the flutters
Still.
But I will.