A caterpillar's tale

I was sitting in Kensington park this afternoon, watching (but not quite staring) at the cute counter-culture girls with tattoos and hippie clothes. Little packs of people with musical instruments and various trinkets were strewn here and there, and the smell of weed wafted in and out through my nostrils.

While not getting high, I was getting more and more in tune with the atmosphere of the people there; clearly these people were regulars to the park and as conversations about their life flowed on and on endlessly around me, I felt connected.

I desperately wanted to join in on some of the fun, but having been rejected far too many times before, I decided I would not risk it and kept to myself, propped up against a tree while eating brazil nuts. But I was not alone.
All around me, the grass shimmered with late spring vitality and if I looked at the greenery just right, I could see individual lifeforms busying themselves with their animal tasks.

The ants were scurrying around, patrolling their territory. The birds were chirping, singing songs of life and liveliness. Dogs barked; cats roamed and I lay down and felt myself melt into the earth.

And then, a most beautiful creature appeared on my arm. A fuzzy little caterpillar was quietly undulating, rising and falling up and down my arm hair. He seemed happy when I looked at him straight in the eyes, as he raised his torso up to greet me.
And I talked to him.

I told him of the loneliness that I felt, even while on campus. I told him how hard I've worked to be the person I've always wanted to be. I told him that I felt happy that girls were finally looking at me when I walked down the street. Smiling, now, seemed so easy. And I got smiles back. And yet,  as I recounted to the caterpillar, I rarely found the occasion to have long, deep conversations with people.

He understood. He listened, but offered no advice. After all, he had his own problems to deal with.

Soon, he would become a butterfly. His metamorphosis was imminent; and once he would be a butterfly, then he could finally fly around and see the world from a different perspective.

And so I asked myself; maybe if I were to undergo some sort of metamorphosis; some sort of change, then maybe I could change the world around me so that I could fit in better.

And as I sit in front of a computer at the biggest library in Toronto, I wonder if my walk home will bring me the reflection I so desperately need to keep on metamorphosing.

And maybe, just maybe, the girl of my dreams will run into me at a corner, and my loneliness will be cured.

Until then, I write.