“Butterfly” is about change, more specifically the changes of being a woman. I discuss my personal experience and it’s struggles.

When I need a sign I ask for a butterfly. 
No matter its form – 
as long as I see its flapping wings of bright colors a sense of 
Ease
 pulls over me. 
The beauty of butterflies is not only their final form, but their beginning stages. 
It reminds me of the cycle of womanhood. Not only in our first bleed, but the lives we lived even before it fell upon us. 
I’ve been through many forms and places in life, 
different mindsets
and I am always changing. My mind changes from 
one day
to the next, 
while other ideas stay firm. 
I change my clothes and my nails and my hair and my thoughts and my wishes and my hopes and I do pray for change. 
Who are we if we are not changing? 

I think of other women all the time. 
I think of my sisters in my county,
 I think of my sisters in other countries, 
I think of my sisters worldwide. 
How does their change compare to my change? 
We all bleed the same, connected by cycles or the sharing of our pain and even then we change. 

I am grateful for change. 
Change is also something that scares me. 
Though I know I will be grateful for it in the end. 
For the brief time I bleed to the days that lead up to my next,
it leaves space for something new to blossom. 
What runs in my mind everyday is the injustice that I see my sisters face. They are held by their own chains of patriarchy they themselves refuse to part from or some cannot even part from. Change of the mind, body, and spirit is inescapable. For better or for worse. 

I can only hope that when women change, 
it is done for the betterment of us all. 
I hope our wings will never be clipped, 
that the predators don’t swallow us whole and 
we may continue to go somewhere new. 

The sad reality I’ve faced is
that misogyny will most likely not end in my lifetime. 
Maybe we need to start anew, change. 
Maybe that’s the only solution to live in a world where women 
can get an education
can walk down a street without fear of being raped or murdered,
can speak their minds openly, 
can be free of a world where 
they are held back from the moment we are born. 

Despite all of the struggle and hardship, 
being a woman is not something I would trade for 
anything in the world. In every lifetime, my sisters and I’s wings will continue to emerge
from the wombs of our mothers and the ones
before them. 

I will raise my voice in anger, 
hold my head in despair, 
and clasp my hands in hope that one day my sisters and I will all be free from our chains. 
One day, my sisters and I will all be 
free. 
Free to spread our 
beautiful 
butterfly 
Wings
 and fly away with
 no one
to hold us 
back. 

Process

I used my own feelings as a tool to guide me through this work, mainly of how I was prone to change my entire life. My recent changes are about how I view womanhood and how I try to advocate for my fellow women across the globe. I learned more about myself, I always am, and how things are grim but there is always hope for women.