Outside the sky is a torn curtain
and rain hammers the glass
as if it can break its way inside
it triggers something
that used to live inside of me
but the window holds, the walls hold
and I suddenly remember
that safety is a place, a choice
a boundary that I am allowed to keep
there is a tenderness in being sheltered
while the world is wildly raging
this is chrysalism, the recognition
that I do not have to meet every storm
I have spent too long believing
that pain is proof of devotion
now I am unlearning the religion of suffering
and learning that peace
does not need to be earned through breaking
and I think of all the times I stayed too long
in places that damaged me
I feel a fluttering, a whispering
not this anymore, not the old tragedies
not the familiar drowning in my sorrow
chrysalism is my refusal
to step back into the storm
and somewhere out there in the dark
a future waits for me, quiet as butterfly wings
©Ann Bagnall
Annie's Poetry 