cuttlefish

(album: she had a bf - 2016)

I wish I had your colors
I wish I had your colors
And your second sheet of skin

I was the camera shutter
You were the camera flash
You dressed in camouflage
I I wore pajama pants

I was a manatee
You you were a cuttlefish,
I moved in cavalcades, lumbering
You could choreograph a ballad in the muscle tissue of a subtle twitch
Masquerade as something other, make your outer colors switch
I was sculpted out of slate, you grew out a floral wreath
I had dorsal flippers, you had tentacles and plural feet
And twisted past the crevices and left me by the coral reef

Bereft of thought, left abroad
Always acted like you spoke the breath of God
Concrete cephalopod
Of course you couldn't let me in
Coagulate your casing when I touched you with my ventral fin
Polaroids with exes, you had emerald skin, several tints
Watched your soma shimmer when you texted him
I've seen all your colors fade, it's me that you've lost interest in
Beige or blue at home but you could toggle through a range of hues
Flash an orange smile to men that you were just a stranger to
Never was a creature that you couldn't change into
Nothing complicated for you mimic octopus, what can't you do
Stage yourself an angelfish, change to an electric eel
Arrange yourself in halo rings, conduct a charge of sex appeal

Never knew if you would give me voltage or a spark
Me, a goldfish at the surface, you would puncture through the dark
As you were coming, never knew if you were dolphin or a shark
When you pulled your disappearing act and cast me your good-byes
I would ask you why you're leaving, you would mask it with your lies
Selective memory, forget the good, remember when I fucked shit up
Hold onto regrets and petty arguments with suction cups
Bioluminescent, you would find me if try and hid
Giant squid feelers, venom lion fish fins

When you pulled your disappearing act and cast me your good-byes
I would ask you why you're leaving, you would mask it with your lies
Practiced master of disguise, go and blast me with your dyes
Inkjet smokescreen me with mascara from your eyes

I was nothing like you; I was colorless, maladroit
I saw us as lovers, not as color-coded data points
On some sort of a lab report, I tried to become you
Change my patterns often and take us back to what we had before
But I could never do it, you could see through my Chromatophores
Control me with your colors, what's a sea cow to a matador

You you were a darter fish
Facelift artifice
Garter snakeskin scales
Shapeshift cartilage

I was the camera shutter

You were the camera flash

You dressed in camouflage

I I wore pajama pants

I was a manatee

You you were a cuttlefish

I moved in cavalcades, lumbering