Butterfly Extermination Poem by Dakota Ellerton

The air hung thick with guilt and shame, like hot molasses it scolded my flesh, leaving a rotting stench, filling the lungs of by standers, whom have watched and seen these travisties play repeatedly, each pin pricked into a tender cusion of tissue and blood, poisoning the mainstream. Leading to infinite fatality.

‘To whom this may concern’, my letters began, written in pen but hardly blood, as it dripped from my fingertips to ink the sorrow filled pages of misery and regret, hidden in books and albums or under the matress - each word chosen to strike light and love on the ugly truths of honesty.

I remember the butterflies that swarmed and flew about my stomach, at the simplest notes from you, until you’d decided best fitting to clip and pull each wing from such delicate feelings I’d bared for you.

I watched and cried, as you’d torn apart my life down to the dry wall, your knuckles bloody and raw, as each fist had hurt us just the same. Holes to the walls, as all else lay broken on the hardwood floors, our bodies too exhausted and tired from fighting and defending, we sat in silence too long, only to repeat what we’d already known.

You need me, and I need you, endlessly and hopelessly, yet through your tantrum and raging, I never thought to walk away, repeatedly I’d grab your hand and take off our shirts, your heart, to mine. My breasts pushed to your chest, as our hands censored every nerve. We sinned in love and sex, as we’d rebuilt what you had demolished.

Within me is you, to a point you’ll never comprehend, delicious kisses I know you’d never bare to sacrafice, still you’d torture us just the same, within innocence is devilish intentions, lead by ------

Incrypted to my wrist, is the definite truth of a soulmate.