Welcome Inside My Head · Track 13

Butterflies Were Just Wasps

Caitlin Beadles6:07Out now

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Lyric sheet

Lyrics

Verse 1

I used to think love felt like anxiety,

Like losing sleep at 2 AM.

Like waiting for your name to light my phone,

Then blaming myself when something changed.

I thought wanting someone badly

Meant they had to be the one.

Didn’t know my nervous system

Was reliving what it learned from love.

You wore chaos like a leather jacket,

Made distance feel intoxicating.

Every warning came with pretty wings,

So I mistook fear for fate again.

I was so used to almosts,

I called the panic chemistry.

Called confusion destiny,

Didn’t know my nervous system

Was choosing what was familiar to me.

Pre-Chorus

’Cause I was taught that love was fragile,

Something I could lose.

So every time my body panicked,

I mistook it for the truth.

Chorus

The butterflies were never butterflies at all,

Just warning signs dressed up as desire.

Tiny stings I learned to romanticize,

’Cause chaos always felt like fire.

Every time my stomach dropped,

I thought that meant “the one.”

But my body wasn’t falling in love,

It was bracing for the flood.

Maybe butterflies aren’t love.

Maybe they’re alarms.

Maybe every time I reached for you,

My body thought it had to brace for harm.

Now I know the difference

Between chemistry and fear.

And my nervous system

Was screaming long before my heart could hear.

Verse 2

You made silence feel addictive,

Made inconsistency feel deep.

I mistook emotional unavailability

For something I just had to keep.

And every time you pulled away,

My body went to war.

Not because you were my soulmate,

But because I’d felt this hurt before.

I kept confusing hypervigilance

With passion and desire.

Didn’t know my history

Was setting off the fire.

Pre-Chorus

I thought if love felt peaceful,

It probably wasn’t real.

When someone keeps you guessing,

The chaos starts to feel

Like proof that it matters,

Like something you can’t lose.

’Cause no one ever taught me

Safe was something I could choose.

Chorus

The butterflies were never butterflies at all,

Just warning signs dressed up as desire.

Tiny little stings I learned to romanticize,

’Cause chaos always felt like fire.

Every time my stomach dropped,

I thought that meant “the one.”

But my body wasn’t falling in love,

It was bracing for the flood.

Maybe butterflies aren’t love.

Maybe they’re alarms.

Maybe my nervous system

Couldn’t tell danger from someone’s arms.

I called it chemistry,

But it looked too much like fear.

Turns out what I thought was falling

Was survival living here.

Bridge

And suddenly it hit me.

All those nights I called it fate,

My body wasn’t falling in love,

It was preparing for pain.

I didn’t know peace felt boring

When your body’s raised on tension.

So every time you pulled away,

My brain confused fear for connection.

But healthy love was never meant

To feel like a constant state of wait.

And healthy love would never make

My nervous system beg to stay.

Those butterflies inside my stomach

Never meant safety once.

They were just survival instincts

Dressed up as love.

The butterflies were just wasps.

Breakdown

I don’t want love that keeps me anxious,

Wondering if I’ll be left behind.

I want someone whose presence

Doesn’t feel like surviving all the time.

I want silence that feels peaceful,

Not silence that I have to decode.

I want love that feels like landing,

Not another war my body knows.

Final Chorus

The butterflies were never butterflies at all,

Just warning signs I called “true love.”

Tiny little stings I learned to romanticize

Because chaos was the closest thing to love.

But maybe real love feels steady.

Maybe peace is what is real.

Maybe safety’s not boring.

Maybe safety’s how you heal.

A nervous system searching for familiar,

Calling fear connection.

Maybe love was never meant

To feel like slipping through my hands.

And maybe one day my body

Won’t romanticize the sting.

Won’t keep chasing warning signs

Just because they came with wings.

Won’t hear danger and call it destiny.

Won’t mistake panic for light.

Won’t keep calling wasps butterflies.

From the notebook

The handwritten lyric page

Butterflies Were Just Wasps

Every warning came
with pretty wings.

My body wasn’t falling in love.
It was bracing for the flood.

Love that feels like landing,
not another war my body knows.

I won’t keep calling wasps butterflies. ♡

Behind the song

The story inside it

“Maybe safety’s not boring. Maybe safety’s how you heal.”

I wrote Butterflies Were Just Wasps about realizing that what I once called chemistry was often anxiety. Losing sleep, waiting for a name to appear, and feeling my stomach drop seemed romantic because unpredictability felt familiar. I thought wanting someone badly meant they had to be the one, when my body was really preparing for the hurt it already knew.

The song reframes the butterflies as warning signs. Distance felt intoxicating, inconsistency felt deep, and hypervigilance looked like passion because my nervous system could not yet separate connection from fear. The panic was real, but it was not proof of fate. My body was sounding an alarm long before my heart was ready to listen.

Healing begins when I stop romanticizing the sting. I want silence I do not have to decode, presence that does not feel like survival, and love that feels like landing. Maybe peace is not boring. Maybe safety is how the body learns a new definition of love—and one day, I will stop calling wasps butterflies just because they came with wings.

— Caitlin

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