Free Roses has dozens of poems written during the pandemic and over the three years that Chelsea was in trance due to a traumatic brain injury. From the mental wards to the magic of her family's land in Central Florida, these lush and insightful pieces will uplift and delight you.

Mezcalita Press

AMAZON

Today I Asked the Butterfly

Today I asked the butterfly
what it's like to be a butterfly.
She perched on the purple skirt
of a petunia and asked -
What's a butterfly?

I blushed with shame
at the notion of assigning a name
to someone who never named herself,
someone who is so absorbed in being
that she doesn't need identity.

Because of her,
I started to move in ways
I had never moved before.

Losing my name meant
I could become the unknown,
a pattern, an echo, a prayer.

I mimicked the bear, the great moose,
the rhino, the squirrel.

I morphed and shifted,
but when I thought of the butterfly
I felt the most uplifted.

I didn't know the God in me
until I became the small,
winged one who drinks from
the hearts of flowers.

Chelsea Lynn LaBate