Monarch butterflies live 4-5 weeks on average,

their small life spans driven by instinct and survival. 

Migrating generations live 8-9 months, 

inheriting the burden of a 2,000 mile journey,

not knowing why they make it.

They journey south, then take a sharp turn east,

forcing them to fly over Lake Superior in one stretch.

The little butterflies, blissfully unaware

that this detour is entirely unnecessary,

then dutifully fly south once again, 

completing the migration written in their genetic code; 

entirely unaware that they were flying east 

for the sole purpose of going around a mountain 

that hasn't existed there in thousands of years. 
 

Part of going low contact with your family 

involves not consciously thinking about them 

except late at night, when your head is so full of thoughts

swirling around, keeping you awake, consuming

your consciousness, mind so full you feel them filling up 

your whole body, throat aching, until you throw up 

all the trauma, all the repressed memories that you tried 

so hard to forget, and the soul crushing conflict of missing them. 

 

Sometimes I notice little footprints of my mother

within my identity and I don't know how to feel. 

How can the person who loves me most in the world

also be the source of flashbacks and panic attacks?

She taught me kindness, how to love selflessly, 

and how to trigger survival responses through manipulation. 

I wonder if my mother learned cruelty and how to play victim 

from hers. 

I wonder if she learned the art of masking abuse from her mother too. 
 

Science shows that in the form of tiny cells, 

I existed in the ovaries of my mother 

while she was within the womb of hers. 

I wonder what predetermined qualities that gave me. 

I wonder if that is why, for as long as I can remember,

I have woken up in the middle of the night, panicked 

from a nightmare that I am suddenly giving birth. 

Always so vivid, I can smell the panicked air, 

rich with the stench of blood and adrenaline fueled sweat. 

So vivid I can remember every detail, feel the head of this 

unwanted, horrifying surprise child crowning,

so vivid I can still feel the terror even now. 
 

I'd like to think that these dreams will be stop 

once I have my fallopian tubes removed, 

my doctor, my savior, the hero who puts an end

to generations of trauma, who will give me peace of mind

to know that the cycle of abuse ends with me. 

I will not be flying around a mountain that no longer exists.