wings

"one of the few things that lindsey had taught me about butterflies came back to me.

many of the poisonous ones aren't born poisonous.

it's not yet pumping through their cells when they escape their cocoons.

but they feed on milkweed as soon as they have the equipment to do it and that's where the toxins come from.

so there's a moment at birth when they could choose something else.

they could choose to be better, to be gentler, to be of no harm.

of course, butterflies have been feeding on milkweed since before we existed.

a biological defense mechanism, it's not in the cards for them to feed off anything else.

if it was, it would only make them more palatable to vicious jungle birds that would eat them for breakfast.

it's a lose-lose situation."
-Sloane Crosley