After George Rodrigue’s “Hawaiian Blues”

As the sun rose from the ashes,

a seed nestled deep within my brain,

sprouting a blossom that hide from

the thoughts buried in my head,

like a butterfly reincarnating from their cocoon.

Nurtured by pink flesh membrane

Watered by the flood of anxiety that had broken my dam

Mutated and morphed by bastard genetics,

these seedlings overtook my empty wasteland

like a vine that slithers silently and stealthily through the desert.

One morning,

as the sun rose from the ashes,

darkness fooled my conscious

and I realized that my head

,once like the abandoned skeleton of a junkyard car,

had birthed yellow magnolias

where my sunflower eyes had now vacated.

My paws clawed against the violent wind,

feeling the silky petals break off

and flutter through the air

like a kaleidoscope of butterflies

nursing at the roots hidden deep within

my sapphire fur.

Flapping wildly

the sound roaring in the caves of my ears

like an aggressive wave fighting against the unphased edge of a rock.

The pool moistening the webs beneath my toes

photographed the deep yellow eyes staring back at me.

The fluttering had stopped,

the wings had closed,

the petals had shriveled.

Since I don’t know what I am

I can’t know what I see.

I extinguish with the sunset as the flame deep within my eyes continues to burn through the hoods over my flowers,

Blinded by the image of butterflies and magnolias that haunt my dreams like the ghosts that tapped us on the shoulder and danced with us by the rocks arguing with the waves.