“When all you know is fight or flight, red flags and butterflies all feel the same.”
~ Cindy Cherie
The more you desire someone, the more you fear being ruined or destroyed by your vulnerabilities to them. Your early butterflies, slowly but insidiously, transforming into red flags. In the heat of your desire and need, your fear becomes exaggerated; and you make the decision to either fight the invisible enemies within, take flight from them, or do both. The irony being that either way, the fight or flight pushes away what you wanted or thought you needed, your fear being the real enemy.
Alternative version: Free verse
The object of desire is your greatest vulnerability; the path to your elusive joy or inevitable ruin: recycled and reimagined.
Early butterflies—slowly but insidiously—transform into the red flags of paranoia. The fear of loss and humiliation enclosing you like a vice grip.
In the heat of desire and neediness, you fight or take flight from the invisible enemies within: the delusions of demons who would steal your joy or facilitate your shame. And this will assuredly keep you separated from your object of desire; your fear and paranoia being the most crafty of enemies.
© 2022 David M. Rubin. All rights reserved.
Notes from David 