The Butterfly Tiger

a poem of transformation

I am the black brown folded leaf moth, 
Struggling on the inside
The shell around me
Not wanting to leave it
The me can I do it?
The Please help me

The me feeling the heat of the boiling skin under the surface
The warmth of growth,
Spiral, spiral, unwind,
Open the red curtain of that what was never seen before,
That of the big screaming Tiger I dreamt of last night
safe behind a gate
ready to devour me

freezing me inside,
fooled by the metal bars in front of me
Yet so attracted to the shinyness of its skin
The sharpness of the white wet teeth
The drooling of the perfect lips,
The licking of the tongue

The power so contained so graciously carried,
The growling as un earthquake under my feet
Me smiling at my safety
The safety that was a lie
The safety that was a lie I was told
The safety of that what was inside needed to be kept outside
The safety of the illusion of power

And then..

And then
The bars melted,
The shiny bars in front of me melted
And I screamed and…
Because everything would be lost
Everything I once was would have to leave
Everything would dissappear in that big dark mouth,
Crushed by those shine glimmering teeth,

Eaten alive
Eaten all live
Eaten all me

But instead, it did not,
inside became outside,
outside became inside,
the tiger is me,
I became the beast.
Ready now to shine and glimmer

To now flutter my wings in the new born butterfly

Christel Janssen (author) is a Qigong Artist, Writer, Poet and Author of ‘Forty-Nine Days, A sensuous Journey in the Modern Afterlife. She is the founder of Spontaneous Movement, and offers retreats and classes in Hawaii to allow ‘a bigger reality to speak through you’.