kheza

When the Butterflies Leave

The butterflies are gone now.
They left their wings on my windowsill,
fragile, torn,
a goodbye I didn’t see coming.

The nerves too, they’ve faded.
The ones that made my heart stutter,
my hands tremble,
that sharp ache in my chest like I’d swallowed lightning.
Now, it’s just silence.
An empty room where they used to live.

I miss the way they’d show up uninvited:
On first dates, fumbling for words,
At the edge of a kiss that felt too big for the moment,
In the breath I held blowing out candles,
eyes squeezed shut with the audacity of hope.

But now, everything feels still.
Birthdays come and go,
and I don’t even light the candles.
First dates turn to quiet goodnights,
and I don’t bother remembering their faces.
The thrill is gone
not because I stopped caring,
but because I forgot how it felt to care.

Nobody warns you that the absence of nerves
is worse than the fear they bring.
Because nerves meant you were alive,
that something mattered enough to make you shake.
And when they’re gone,
you’re left with a quiet you didn’t ask for.

So now I sit in the stillness,
hoping one day the butterflies will return.
But I know they won’t.
They never do.