Izzi Lynn

Butterfly

What are we?
I ask.
It\'s hard to answer, because we all make choices,
choices that differentiate us.

My favorite kind of people are the butterflies:
the ones who choose to be happy, choose to shine.
A whole new world is open to those with wings.

But there are also the starving monsters:
the ones who are foaming at the mouth,
scarlet blood staining their hands and feet.
They stand alone in desolate ruins of their own destruction.
Those are the people that make me question why we exist.
I ask myself, can we just put aside our differences
and accept each other?
Can we just love one another?

I don\'t like all these words that define us
by uncontrollable characteristics.
We are the sum of all our parts,
they are not the sum of us.

Why can\'t we all just be butterflies?
Happy with who we are, happy with others.
Delicate but strong, able to adapt to change.

Maybe someday people will understand
that our differences should unite us, not divide us.
Maybe someday the KKK will realize the color of your skin
doesn\'t change the bones beneath your flesh.
Maybe someday ISIS will realize that religion is not cause
to slaughter other people.
Maybe someday Catholics will realize that homosexuals are not diseased or born of Satan, they are people.
Maybe someday, we\'ll all realize that the words
we use to rationalize our cruel actions,
are not walls hiding the cruelty but glass showcasing it.

Be a butterfly.
Grow wings and allow everyone to live the way they are.
Don\'t let the foaming starving monsters eat you alive.
They\'ll flay you alive, cut you into pieces and eat you.
Don\'t let them. Just be a butterfly, and they can\'t touch you.

What are we?
We are all human.
We all have bone beneath our skin.
We all have a red heart pumping blood through our bodies.
What we have in common
is much greater than what we don\'t.