Butterfly Effect

I'm not usually much of a poet, but some of my Dad's words of wisdom sparked some inspiration when I hit a particularly low point the other week.


"It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world." - Chaos Theory


if only it was as simple as
struggle: emerge: fly away
struggle to be
your own adult
your own
to be
but unravel my cocoon and you will not get threads of silk
rather the threads of a story
inside is no monarch or moth- though i do chase moonbeams
instead you will find a girl
wrapped in nine months of exotic accents and fiery food
with a tribal heartbeat hip-life cannot match
whose fingerprints speak in Ewe
inside the girl, perhaps, the butterfly
struggle: emerge: fly away
the pattern will be bolder the longer it sets
the etchings in the wings deeper
black commas near the bottom for the children
stuck on pause
two indrawn breaths someone forgot to release
22 featherlight strokes across the back in every hue
mirages that shift a little every day
"you're a gift to them"
from someone too big and unimagineable to name
but here they call him Mawu
there will be scarlet for the dust
intertwined with the ancient green of the baobabs
gray for the hissing ocean
homesickness tattooed in royal blue at the joint
the hint of a milky way
where nostalgia has bleached the edges white
and black
of course
a living Kente cloth from the master weaver himself
struggle: emerge: fly away
they heard africa
i heard a siren call
they said impossible
i said impractical
watch me spin a new future from the tangled web
of what i always promised would someday be
watch me write a new law of cause and effect
my effect
the flutter of a single butterfly's wing
but the typhoon will rage in me.