butterflies and leaves

the first time i ever snuck out of my house

i was twelve.

i remember the door fluttered slightly when it got caught on the frame. 

i stuck a tippy-toe out there and the cool, dampness of the pavement encountered my adrenaline-clad gallop just as

the butterfly will encounter the leaf 

the second time i ever snuck out was the first time i ever skinny dipped.

i think i was thirteen and the sign said

“no trespassing” but that sometimes translates to 

“are you coming?”

always

i stood on the diving board and let that millisecond seize me before the water did. and it did.

and it reacquainted itself with my adrenaline and introduced me to a stranger:

freedom

the second time i ever skinny dipped was the first time i almost died.

bridgitte was the priestess

blackness was the blessing

and i was the sinner, reborn.

i think i was briefly immortal and 

it’s like when you’re floating in the black water you can’t really tell the difference between the stars and their reflections

i mean you don’t want it to end, but i guess you’ve got to breathe

in the end, dark always turns to light and i can feel the memories slipping a little, but, oh i need them, i desperately need them.

they bring me back to when i would turn the back door handle so slowly so my parents couldn’t hear it and to when water did more than neutralize me and i didn’t cry when i wrote poems because there was nothing to cry about

there were only tippy-toes and trespassing and brief immortality

you don’t understand

those are the things i really need—those are the things that still give me butterflies because i can still feel all of that night time air 

each with its own scent

laced with the subtle naivety of a first time.

time is a bird of prey who abducted my innocence but he can’t take away that residue of purity!

those tinges of something that i can still remember!

the unmistakable scent that lingers and still nourishes me and summons those butterflies from all of those leaves.