Keep Me Around

Featured in the WILDsong Fable Poetry Festival, 2024

Keep me around
Pin me down. Tack my wings to a wood block.
Hang me on your wall and preserve me,
like a taxidermy butterfly.

A loved thing, petrified. A shallow kiss, breath
laced with formaldehyde. Treasure me
like a prized possession, describe me, like
I’m the most intricate, distinct, and magnificent thing
that belongs to you.

Give me a place, any space, in your life.
Lay me to rest on your bookshelf,
or the mantle above your fireplace, or
on the nightstand, so I’m the first thing you see,
when you wake up in the morning—If that’s not too
much of an ask— then I swear to be a
modest muse.

I’ll betray my very nature and wait for you to
change. I will love you, silent, my only escape,
clipped and pinned behind my back, mariposa,
withering, my wings more like tissue paper, every day,
So, I won’t want to fly away or go anywhere.

I’ll oblige to be patient and trapped,
content and okay forever, just displayed,
beneath a sheet of glass, if it means
you’ll keep me around.