Dead Butterflies.

I possess three, um, dead butterflies - one boxed, one pressed like a keepsake, and one artfully mounted. I could say I 'own' these bflies, but that implies that I sought them out or bought them myself.

The boxed one is a male monarch in a cheap cassette-tape holder, tossed on a storage shelf at work.

I control the inventory in that room, and I knew at least ten years had passed since that monarch had wound up there. I could've housed him with the microscopes and slide specimens, but he came home with me. I have plans for him, too.

Which leads to my pressed butterfly - another boy of the monarch persuasion, flattened in a book.  My mother found him during the poignant process of helping a friend go through her mother's things after she'd passed from this world to a heaven plentiful with butterflies. So the little guy was passed on to a good home, namely, mine. The presentation to me was quite ceremonial - Mom's Dave framed the fella, and I got a thorough explanation of his discovery and the painstaking framing process. Once I find a complimentary frame, the storage-shelf bfly will get the same decorative treatment.

My mounted butterfly was a Christmas gift - Dave as well. He was worried I'd not like such a gift, seeing as I raise and release bflies. Still, I named her Victoria and hung her in my home office, a.k.a. "the butterfly room." She's more mounted than pressed, her yellow wings lifted as in flight. And she's the bfly in the Butterfly Confessions Also logo. I've no idea her species nor origin. She was bought at a retail shop and the frame says "Made In China."

What strikes me most about these butterflies are their colors - they never fade. They own their colors. Or do they possess them...?