CHRYSALIS

intro

Single-minded eating machine,

greedy, prickly green,

Moving sluggish,

eating, eating,

hungry beast not retreating.

Eating till the skin grows taut,

till the prickly green is frayed,

Unrelenting, hunger-driven,

path surveyed.

Erratic movement,

seeks to hide—

loathsome changes rot inside.

verse 2

Avarice digests its very skin;

waits for dark alchemy to begin.

Cells collapse to primal dew,

nature’s crucible anew;

a stable form from amorphic loss,

a purpose blind and raw—

a frenzied search for place within

the burden of nature’s laws.

Armless embrace—duty’s creed—

its home hangs brittle from leafless limb;

pre-chorus

Humble creature of voracious need

cracks: a chasm, a burst balloon—

Is this chaotic loss?

chorus

Reckoning mark scratched in the sand—

the symbiotic line

is crossed.

Cycle ceases—chrysalis splits,

silken cloth rent in pieces.

Curling, churning,

urgent unfurling,

begging release from pain.

Pushing through—

a velvet birth;

stained-glass wings revealing:

a diamond forged from dirt.

Rises, dips, escapes imperial judgment,

from nature’s cell-bound prison.

Exotic nymph, triumphant now,

Earth’s own phenomenal prism.

outro

The cycle exhausted, freedom won;

a new one born with the rising sun.