Metamorphosis

She inches forward,
ripple of green on green,
tiny feet grasping the veins
of milkweed leaves,
her skin lit soft with sunlight.

The wind carries signals she doesn't trust.
Shadows loom, and leaves shiver beneath her weight.
Still, she clings to trembling stems,
nibbles what she can,
and keeps moving.

When the time is right,
she doesn’t know
what waits inside the dark.
Only that something within her
longs to unfold,
to turn inward,
to trust the silence between heartbeats.

Inside the chrysalis,
her body comes undone.
Cell by cell,
the past dissolves
to make room for something
she's never felt
but always knew was there.

When the stillness gives way,
she emerges from the dark
like a first breath after drowning,
fragile but whole.

She rises on colorful wings
shaped by all that she was,
and all that she's become

to taste this strange new freedom
of flying.