i have to believe that pain
doesn’t just wear our hearts out;
that it stretches them with purpose,
that it’s meant to give us a pulse…
in breakdown, we are broken open,
and in hurt, we find more humanity,
passion is stirred from our aches,
and empathy is a muscle that grows
the more we feel… and so we
come out brighter from our darkness.

maybe if we let it… our pain can have
beautiful purpose.

– butterflies rising

we so easily
let our fears be these
uncontrollable, raging monsters,
and yet we see our dreams as such
tiny little seeds… why are we not
letting the beautiful things be
the ones that grow wild?

– butterflies rising

i think i’ve always fought stillness
with chaos… maybe because it feels easier…
you can’t be shaken from your footing if
you’ve never even had it, right?

but now i’m being asked to
stay still in the uncertainty, to try to learn
to breathe easy in all this delicate nuance…
to start to question the way i’ve made such a habit
out of fearful, so breath-held and chest-tight,
always just hoping for gentle in the unknown…

because what if life doesn’t have to just “not hurt”…
what if there could be something so beautiful
waiting for me in the unknown

– butterflies rising