Day 10

My mother never understood what I meant when I asked her about the shadow butterflies. It seemed to upset her every time I brought it up so over the years I learned to keep quiet about them.

I called them shadow butterflies because that's what they looked like to me, pure shadow in the shape of butterflies. I changed their names to black butterflies later on when I realised that shadows are supposed to evaporate in the presence of light but even in the summer sun they wouldn't disappear.

The first time I saw them was when I was two. I had found a dead mouse that my ginger cat had abandoned in the kitchen, seemingly losing interest in the dirty body when he smelled his bowl of wet food in the corner.

They were strange, about half the size of the poor mouse with flimsy wings and no patterns. Just sleek ebony.

I had fetched my mum, my chubby finger pointing at the two butterflies just sitting there on the little body. She clicked her tongue, remarking how it was such a shame it had to die in such a way. I kept asking and asking about the butterflies but my mom chalked it up to my young mind not knowing how to properly deal with death.

I guess she wasn't entirely wrong.

I started seeing them more and more from that incident on. They seemed to flock to serious injuries but would disappear if they healed. I remember falling from my tree house when I was 5, waking in the hospital to the sight of about four of them clinging to my neck. I couldn't feel them, if I hadn't seen my reflection in my mom's compact mirror I wouldn't even have realised they were there.

I guess you could say this was the beginning of the end. I became infatuated with the strange creatures.

Two years later I was rushed to the hospital with a serious concussion after jumping off two flights of stairs. I thought that they looked like a flower crown of some sorts, clinging to my hair with their mysterious dark bodies.

At age twelve I started hiding knives in my room. I had found that if I dug them into the right veins the butterflies would flock to the blood.

I started intensive therapy when I was thirteen. I lied, of course. I said that I liked seeing my own blood, I knew they wouldn't believe me if I claimed to see black butterflies every time I risked my life.

The antidepressants started filling my pill holder the next year, my parents couldn't understand what had gotten into their little girl. I hated seeing them so dejected so I stopped my experiments for a while, taking up the hobby of painting them instead of summoning them.

I had a dull ache in me the next two years, I longed to see my butterflies again but I didn't want to risk upsetting my loved ones.

It was the day after he left me that I broke. The craving for them mixed with the heavy grief of a broken-hearted teenager wore me down. I plunged a kitchen knife into my stomach that evening.

When I came to in the hospital again all I could think of was if my butterflies had came back. They had, of course, and I was overjoyed. I stroked their insubstantial bodies, a strange possessiveness taking hold. I didn't ever want to lose them again.

It's been years since then. I've survived multiple different attempts at calling them to me and I've decided at last to bid them farewell. I have a boy that paints flowers onto my body now. Whenever the desire sets in he grabs his paintbrushes and pastels and helps me fight the compulsion.

I've seen them on others, of course, but it's not the same. I fell in love with death when I was a child. It was a hard road to recovery but I think I've finally found the beauty hidden in life.

A white butterfly lands on my swollen stomach and I giggle, lightly stroking its soft wing.