Four Months, Two Weeks, Six Days, and 13 Hours

She liked to call me babe. 
I never got used to that, nor did I ever really figure out what 'babe' meant. Some days, it was a slap on the ass in broad daylight. That was alright. I was expecting that. Other days, though, it was the gentle brush of a thumb across my forehead, a hush in my ear and a hand run through my hair, lulling me to sleep. It was a promise that the cocoon doesn't last, and that caterpillars really do turn into butterflies. 
I still don't know which days I preferred. The first was thrilling but the latter left me paralyzed. Wait, no, there's a better word for this. I heard it on the radio the other day... Inert. Yeah, that's it. I was inert, but just because I had stopped moving doesn't mean she stopped too. Maybe that's why she left me here, a caterpillar in a half finished cocoon, unable to grasp something as simple as 'babe'.