Poem: Exile and Butterflies by Cristina Bresser De Campos

Exile and Butterflies

By Cristina Bresser De Campos
QuailBellMagazine.com

​Exile me inside myself.
So comfortable, I no longer want to get out of here.
Difficult endeavor. At the table next to mine, young beautiful ladies.
Fluttering butterflies, newly outputs from the cocoon.

"Butterfly-girls" giggling, noisy.
Have they ever thought they would get older some day?
That they will get wrinkles in their faces, rice paper surfaces now?
Wrinkles by a sick child, unrequited love,
Scarcity of income?
Lady-girls who keep chasing magic potions to attract boyfriends.
How long will it take until they realize that the most potent magic,
The one that always works, is love?
True love of a woman by a man.
Love unrequited, love that asks nothing and everything it offers.
Love that wants nothing but the best for the one you love.
Even if the best means letting him go, to be happy.
This love cannot be attracted by spells. Because this love is a spell.
Indissoluble magic when two bodies merge and are transported to a dimension
Beyond time and space.
Beyond words. Beyond everything but feeling and sensation.
Oh, Butterfly-girls, such a shiny fleeting glow,
Enjoy the gift of ignorance that you are finite:
Simply fly!