Common House Magazine

The butterfly, an omnivorous herald of wolf in sheep’s clothing, tears easily perched on the bleached bones and stoned ruins of a city. Prism-scaled wings refracting light like stained glass on a sinner’s pew. When is a creature poisonous? After the first bite or the moment it begins to exist? It is the colour that drives the child to the butterfly? The allure that drives a nation to the fall?

The colourful butterfly, like many others, is not always poisonous, but all poisonous things are colourful. Like the promises of a tyrant gilded above others, the butterfly with all its decadent colours, promises to taste good. Fall for the allure and take a bite; maybe this one isn’t poisonous like the last. This is the pattern of nature.