Butterflies and Hurricanes

I was always a good girl

because being good was a value fed to us 

even before we took our first bite of solid food

I always thought good vs bad was always 

as simple as night vs day 

but we often forget that in the myriad shades 

of the sunset is where we really find 

our deepest, honest truth

it’s always somewhere in between 

just a little out of sight

I was always a good girl 

I wore tunics as clean and as crisp 

as the first fallen leaf of autumn 

I drank my milk, finished my homework 

I touched the feet of people I couldn’t

care about, but those I was taught to revere

When you think about Ram vs Ravan,

you think of light vs darkness

but you don’t think about how maybe 

Ravan had tried to be good, but failed

So I let some darkness seep in,

like mixing oil in a drop of water

and beholding an entire rainbow in it

I was always a good girl 

I used to believe that in order to be good

I had to be liked by everyone I knew

Little did I know that when you’re bad 

for all the right reasons

you begin to love all the shades

of your imperfect little heart

and that to me, is as precious as 

the sky at sunset

glowing orange and forever stuck

between night and day