[Poetry] a Cult of Butterflies - taster
A collection of old poems from a debut poetry collection.
*Please note, this is a curated taster of some early poems, originating somewhere in 2017-2019 and first published in “a Cult of Butterflies” (2020). They are reposted now because of the latent themes, beginning imagery, and other seminal stylistic choices that have gone on to influence later (better) works.
I. 00:15
You know how as a child, you would rearrange your entire room and it would be everything you need to feel like a changed person? You’d push your bed to another corner, or switch out a few nostalgic knick-knacks and suddenly you felt different. Changed and fresher than before. As if you’d seen the light, except there was no magical change except for the imaginary one. You were still the same, just looking out on a slightly different angle of the same walls you’d always stared at. Right now, I feel the urge to rearrange again. It’s much stronger than I remember, much more crucial in nature. Will I be different if I push my bed to a different wall? Will sleeping with a different view cure this aching I feel? If I switch out some posters or light a different candle, will I feel less useless? I don’t think so. It’s eating at me. I yearn, no-, I need to rearrange, but the furniture is nailed down.
II. Unnamed love poem
But do I haunt you the way you haunt me? Can you imagine my face by blind imagination alone? Or do you need your fingertips to guide you, feel the contrast, the scars, the texture? Do I stand out immediately? Pointing towards true north, a compass that lives and breathes unlike any other blank canvas, buffet of missed opportunities
III. Unnamed melancholy poem
The sky is an ocean and I'm looking to drown tonight Like a sailor lusting for the waves, unsettled by the calmth and steadiness of the land under his feet Not realizing the journey's never ended The sky is an ocean and I'm looking to drown tonight Just let the clouds absorb me like they do airplanes Take me away and away until my life is like a molecole of sugar on the dining table Sadness is one of the most potent drugs there is, with its silent suffocating and sleek disguise It eats away at anyone who lets it Still there is the chips in my skin, the dents of time For all remaining darkness, I'll walk into the ocean tonight Touch the stars like the old friends they are and come out with a piece of beauty Hear the city woosh underneath my feet once more As if it's an ocean in its own right
IV. Unnamed insomnia poem
It's been such a silent week, filled with the terror of a gentle mind And all the hours I've slept, have been sleeping, result in a deficit of words, of meaning I miss my thoughts like I miss my childhood; only slightly, but nevertheless I long I miss the poetry I'd write in half-lit chambers, waking up to find my phone full of notes I'd rather lay awake if it means that I once more get the gift of translating Life onto paper and paper onto life
V. Poem in two verses
We only start to appreciate things after they are almost taken away and even that gratitude eventually fades
& lower on the page
I went to bed with bleeding hands and awoke to find the sheets stained when morning finally came back to me Cranberries on snow, cherries on ice The wound's not yet healed

Sabrina Angelina is dedicated to the intersection of love and violence, a term she coined to describe classical Romanticism's tendency to pair passion and suffering, tragedy and pleasure, together. Consumed by this concept, she writes on Substack and curates a White Lily Society Instagram page dedicated to arts and culture. In September 2020, she released her debut poetry collection “a Cult of Butterflies”- a pandemic project about longing, nostalgia, and her teenage self’s very first steps in poetry.
White Lily Society links // Sabrina Angelina links
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