Butterflies
Mariposas

There aren’t many bugs outside of my house because the boys usually get to them first. I feel bad for the poor creatures because the boys in my neighborhood usually take them and put them through some kind of slow, agonizing torture. The only kind they leave is my favorite: butterflies. I am glad that the boys think of butterflies as girly and weak so that they leave them for me to look at. I don’t touch them, but I look at them and dream about them. If I had one wish, one prayer that would get me anything in the whole world, and all I had to do was ask, I know what I would want. I would get on my knees and with my sincerest words, I would plead to trade places with the first butterfly that flew into my sight. Butterflies are free to do anything they want and go anywhere they want. They are like birds, but I don’t want to be a bird, I’d much rather swap beings with a butterfly, because birds are larger and can’t hide as easily. Butterflies are tiny and free and can soar anywhere they want, and then hide as easy as a needle in a haystack because they are so small. I want to be a butterfly and fly away from my house. I would fly away from my neighborhood, away from Lima, away from Peru, away from South America. Over the ocean and over as many places as it took for me to get to the United States so I could see my papa and visit the place where they say ‘goodbye’ and ‘so long.’ With wings, I could go anywhere I want and not have to pay any money. Everyone would love me because I would be more beautiful than words, and I would not need to worry about the color of my skin or how dirty my hair was. I would be loved by everyone and safe from harm, boundless and liberated. Oh, to be a butterfly, uncontrolled, and with not a care in the whole world. I would go to visit my papa in the States, and then I would visit each and every country that I travel to in my dreams—France, Japan, Mexico, and Russia—but I wouldn’t stop there. I would go and go until I had visited each and every country that existed, and then I would fly back and visit my family and tell them ‘it is me, Reyna, and now you can love me even though I’m not a boy.’