By leandre huang
i raise a hand to your monarch print. you are the only semblance i have of what it means
to be young. to breathe without it being the last. i have memorised the prick
of your pollen effervescence lingering on my wizened skin, as with you i see the meadows
i once roamed being caked with the dust of broken leaves, yet still the grace
of your soul thrills my childlike heart. with every beat of your wings you dance
to a nursery rhyme, an absent tune i have long forgotten the lyrics to. it beckons
me home, where once as a child you came to rest on my fingers, the halo
of your breath fleeting before fleeing
my yearning touch. in the stilling of our last moments i still dare to wonder,
if you would breathe into my lungs your life, just once; for where you lead
me is home, but there is no strength in my bones left to follow.
in the gentle of this turbulent breeze you finally sit with me and we watch
the haze bleed darkness into twilight, old into new, love into lost,
all while i raise a hand to your monarch print, but still
i lose you, knowing the chase is finally over, and the butterflies are gone.
leandre huang is a year 4 literary arts student in School of the Arts. she lives in an abyss of unfinished poetry and prose but very much desires to finish them one day. generally preferring prose, she seeks to find beauty in the little things and shape them into words. in her free time, she reads too much fiction and opens blank google documents waiting for inspiration.
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