Butterfly

This letting go,
This paring down --
It's surprising, really --
What we're willing to set aside,
The joy of leaving things
(And lives, old definitions of our selves)
Behind in the surge to something new.

Middle-aged men do it (or so we're told)
But here I am, so ready to do the same,
So ready to say no:
I don't, or won't, or can't do that any more:
I'm done chewing through this trap I built myself,
And happy to be on my way,
Not looking back at the old cocoon,
No longer nobody, small and gray,
But new, reborn and flying, finally
Into my own -- and possibly immortal -- skin.