Like most things in my childhood I don’t recall the process of how or why it happened… I just remember the aftermath. 

On a random insignificant day, I had a quiet moment to myself to get crafty. Someone had bought me an art kit that came with neon, sparkly, gel paint and a large plastic butterfly just waiting to be decorated. My memory is shit and my father says it likes to skip over the good parts and focus on the bad….So… I don’t quite remember why I was gifted this object of beauty but I do remember the gel took an annoyingly long time to dry. It crusted under my nails and stuck itself to the table. I gnawed at my fingers and scrubbed the table just as raw in an attempt to erase the evidence of fun I was having. I wanted it to be a secret. You know how it is with younger siblings. Especially brothers. 4 of them. They’ll take any joy they can get. I wanted her to be all my own.

So there I was concocting my frankenstein-esque butterfly in silence. A creature, a companion, brought to life by the hands of a mad scientist child.

I carefully slid a piece of yarn through the small hole at the top of her head and carried her to the kitchen in my arms like a newborn baby. I felt called to protect her, to make sure she survived the drying process in a way where she could fully form and figure out who she was without bumps and bruises.

I scouted the perfect spot. I snagged one of the chairs from our dining room table, its seat was covered with stains from past messes. Gone but not forgotten. I climbed atop the pigmented cloth and got on my tippiest of toes so I could hang her in the center of the curtain rod right above the dining room table.

I felt so accomplished when I had finally tied the finishing knot. There she hung delicately. Unaware of the world below her. I noticed when the AC kicked on she would gently flip around, riding the waves of the wind as if she truly had wings. Artificially flying.

As time passed, that butterfly became a centering point for me. I don’t know why, but my focus was drawn to her. The hot and heavy Texas summer sunsets would light her up through the window, igniting her and making her shimmering glow dance amongst our walls. On rainy days the darkness would settle around her until lightning decided to strike. Her colors would once again splay, but this time in a hypnotic morse-code like sequence. Shadows of wings cast upon the wall. Through family dinners she would hang above the 7 of us as we scarfed down spaghetti, or cried over spilt milk. Silence would fall over us, eyes would dart to our father. The milk would drip to the floor slowly. You would’ve thought a bomb erupted and destroyed our home. Little Danny would soon feel the wrath of that accident. I would look up. At the butterfly on my window.

For whatever reason this butterfly made me feel safe. She made me feel less alone. She was my friend, someone I had created from scratch to join me. Enlisted not by choice, but by necessity.

When the screaming and yelling would happen I would listen with my ears, but my eyes would wander up to her and lock onto her colors. I would dissociate and fold myself up into her wings until the storm calmed, then return back into my body once it was safe to do so. 

I wanted to be like her. Hanging above it all. Witnessing but not affected. There but not touched. 

I felt sad for her at times. I had trapped her there. Forced her there. Made her an accomplice in crimes she never committed. At least I got to leave that house to go to school, or to play basketball with the neighborhood kids. She was always there. Stuck. Constantly at the whim of the elements around her. Just watching us all.

—--------------

One evening, I was so upset, tears filled my eyes, and anger surged through my arms. I ripped the butterfly down and used the adrenaline of whatever had disturbed me to bend the acrylic till it snapped. Over and over again I broke her into pieces. I don’t remember what brought me to these erratic and dismantling emotions, but suddenly I was hyper aware of the aftermath. She was gone and there was no turning back.

 Being the monster I am, I forgot where I put her remains… but I do know that the child in me died that day.

 The only feeling that was left inside of my chest was this: no one deserves to idly float above what is happening. Pain is inescapable. If I had to feel it, she had to feel it too.