ORIGINS: The word was butterfly. In a different language, but no one is perfect. Anyway, MARIPOSA. MAR is sea. And if you use the I to turn the P into an R, ROSA is rose. Thus, a sea of roses was born from a butterfly.
By the way, the props of the second and the fourth characters can be traced back to the hearts of their roses.
I am holding my breath. Underwater. There are no waves in this sea. Only washed-out roses, that have already lulled everyone else into apathy. But I am holding my breath. I have bottled more than a dozen butterflies inside my lungs. They might not be red like blood, but I will hold on to my feelings as long as I can. And then I will let myself drown. In one last scream. In a flutter of bubbles. That the thorns of those roses won’t be able to burst until I am gone.
The sea is nowhere to be found, so the elephant makes do with a single rose. He looks in that rose as if it were a mirror, and it isn’t long before he finds the moon, and a sailing boat cradled in her arms, at the heart of that watery rose. But the butterfly doesn’t understand what it means. She alights on the corner of my mouth, begging for an explanation, but those words are not mine to give. I am not an elephant; I am not all memory. Sailing boats might mean hope to me, and the moon might be the power that ruins everything, but I will never know what those same things mean to that elephant. And I can’t tell that butterfly whether he would welcome a storm or not.
I can tell that this butterfly wants to drown me in a sea of roses, but she doesn’t have enough. I can still breathe. And I wouldn’t call this much of a payback. I won’t lie. I used her wings. My boat didn’t have sails, and I used her wings instead. I was a child; too impatient to wait for a favorable wind. I wanted a storm, to leave my mark in the world. And I set sail, but I was never naive. I knew that I had no real hope of ever reaching my dream. All I ever wanted was to leave destruction in my wake, so that I wouldn’t be alone in my disappointment. And I got what I wanted. But this butterfly keeps rubbing other people’s rosy dreams-come-true in my face, trying to hurt me. And I don’t know how to tell her that I won’t drown. Because I have all the company my misery will ever need, right here, keeping me afloat.
Look at this rose. The crocodile is right there, and so too are those two foxes, trapped in the heart of my rose. You don’t know what I am talking about? Love, I am talking about love. It’s all there. The cunning lies. The fake tears. I am not completely heartless, you know? I am up-front with all my butterflies; I make sure to let them know that they will get what they want from me.