Listen to the words
Jigsaw puzzled meaning, lyrics to accompany
music already written,
for a lonely teenager
thumbing through a record store.

Splashed with colors
Just enough to make you listen, but
not enough, to let you hear
the lonely cry of unspread wings
crippled underneath a flowered cover.

All that’s heard
Are fragments of a story, as the black circle
turns and turns. Only the parts
that are easy to recite
not the ones that consume us.

Those words are nurtured
On a cold rainy day, when butterflies are hiding
behind dew covered roses
only seeing the darkness
of the thorned flower’s shadow.

When the record is played
By an old scratchy needle, the butterfly
flies away, leaving only the sunshine
and the words
of a forgotten song.