With dusty wings
and awkward flight
Your tiny buffalo body
bounces on the
delicate glass surface.
An exaggerated shadow
announces your plight.
Is it the beauty of
the butterfly
that spurs you.
Why so frustrated;
so persistent?
Do you know of emotion?
Maybe you do,
and it is your own
dark turmoil
that draws you to the
glass skirted flame.

I could tell that you had smoked a cigarette before I saw you because your
shirt smelled like smoke and your lips tasted like lung cancer.       (I like to
                            pretend that it doesn’t really bother me I am a moth flying
                                                                ­                                     into your flame.)

Your eyes are green like everything that burns, but your hands are strong
like those who fight fires without more fire.  Sometimes I trick myself into
thinking that I can smell the backyard smoke of my father’s cigarettes,
                                              cigars,­ marijuana, radiating off of you.

Do you remember that time when you told me that “everyone sins?”  I do
not think that you took into account the amount of which we all sin.  (All
sinners are equal, but some are more equal than others.)  ((fire will always
    destroy moths. You are burning my wings with your magnifying glass))

I think I am drowning in the gene pool.  I think I’ve broken the bones of
three different people.  I am terrified my dream catcher will stop working    
                 and years worth of nightmares will catch up with me.  Light my
          nightmares on fire with your lighter.  Turn my everything to smoke.

I spent my entire last year breaking wishbones and hiding them underneath my mattress for luck.  I spent my entire last week getting
splattered with the blood of lambs that I’ve slaughtered in your name, in
                                                   the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  
                      We are lighting moths on fire and watching their wings burn.

There is a chrysalis I am building.  I am not looking for change, I am looking
for the darkness and safety it will provide.  When I hatch, listen to my wings
flutter.  Wait for me to land and then squash me with your cigarette ****.  
Smoke me out of your house.  If you love me,           you will set all the bad
                                                             ­                              parts of me        on fire.

The butterfly of many talents
talked nothing but of himself...
and never stopped to Listen
or gain true conversational wealth
cloaked in flamboyent colors
his butterfly wings so huge,
captured a little lost lady moth
(looking for the moon)
and kept her as his muse

just as the wings of the butterfly
so was the moths heart large
and so she inspired her captor unconditionally..
and loved freely, fanning him...
& flapping her wings too hard...
each time they would tear ,
she'd ignore the searing pain
for with all of her inner beauty;
by no means was she vain

the butterfly misused his muse
did not reciprocate emotion
so her wings drooping stupidly
with blind devotion
were as lost shadowed in his coloring
as before.......
searching for the light of moon in black ocean

he had never saved her from the vast
sky-sea & empty Galaxy
But used her flutter as a tool
to satisfy his selfish artistic needs

the little lost moth lost flight
As she began to understand
the light butterfly provided
was a stage light made by man

all the time she lost
robbed her spirit and stole her grace
so she rubbed the powder off his big bright wings and thought
-what good is his outward beauty now that he can no longer soar in space-
Disenchanted but free at last
moth tries but can never trust color
won't inspire art or music
and will never love another.....

I come from darkness
And such as a moth
Beating itself
To death
Against a flame,
In your arms, I burn
Just the same.


F.Z.N

Killed a moth on principle last night
I saw it outside standing on my air-conditioning
Then I found it inside after I turned my air-conditioning off
Climbed in through the silent vent
and orbited my light bulb l006 times
Before I killed it with a sock
and whipped it one more time into the lamp’s brass base
Almost saved a moth on principle last night
Rationality’s a sham and you know it
The moth said in the morning
I found it clung to my lampshade, dead
with white **** coming out from under a wing ripped in half
Life is a sham we all share

this dust-rolled
brown moth
is
patterned
with a band of white
to stand for winter,
when it was just a flimsy bundle
of gristle and sticks

and all the boys in the summertime are sticky and
unclean
like the mouths of dogs -
pink where the sun can't lick

the backs of their necks are baked red brick

girls wear bronzer
piled on thick.