JASMINE HEIGHTS
Nyla Morrison
When Jasmine was four years old, she wished she could be a butterfly. She didn’t tell her family until she was five, during Christmas karaoke. Jasmine told them all of her wishes to fly—to have butterfly wings, and to see the world below her. Her whole family laughed. Even her cousin Pete stopped singing Winter Wonderland, just to let out a chuckle. The next Christmas Jasmine’s parents bought her blue butterfly wings and she never stopped wearing them until she turned ten. When Jasmine was nine she made a plan to fly on the first day of spring break. She climbed on top of her mom’s gray minivan with a crinkled target bag and her blue butterfly wings. In the hospital, her parents scolded her for breaking her leg. They even told my parents I had encouraged her to do it. We were both grounded and didn’t see each other until school started back up again. When Jasmine turned thirteen, her parents arranged for her to go on a hot air balloon ride, early morning. She cried unexpectedly just as the rain had poured. When Jasmine was fifteen, she drew morpho butterflies on everything. Her bedroom walls, mirrors, curtains, everything she had would end up having a morpho butterfly in a minute. When Jasmine turned seventeen, nothing was ever the same. I was her first kiss, the only one that had given her what she wanted to be, and her worst regret. When Jasmine died, she left saying to me, when I finally die I will come back as a caterpillar, and fly into your hand. The sickening disease created a jade green chrysalis around her pale crippled body. When I turned nineteen, a morpho butterfly blossomed its wings and landed in my palm.
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