When a larva pupates
it has a past and a future
and is in neither and in both at once. 

We can’t know
what it knows of itself
as it hangs poised between appetite
and flight.

Those who knew it as caterpillar
and would embrace it
because they loved as it once was
are confused when
love
is unnecessary to it at that moment,
is likely even unknown to it.

All this is by way of saying
that I am sorry i haven’t written to you
in so long. 

I am
pupa:

I appear arrogant, perhaps,
suspended like this, but know that I am
aware of you
as something more
than just a reminder
of voracious days. 

If I do not find a way back to you
when I emerge,

it will not be without
regret that I have had to abandon
that world.