The Chameleon

The Chameleon

By Levi Duren

My skin slowly changes until I become indistinguishable from the wall behind me; I become only dimly visible when I am betrayed by motion. I am textured like the sheetrock; my hue becomes like another paint sample card from a store.

My voice raises in pitch, quickens in pace, adopts a new pronunciation, all to match yours. It is not mocking. I have placed enough of you into me that, in your mind, something feels comfortably familiar and likable. 

My posture shifts slowly but surely. The way I hold my shoulders is gently abandoned in favor of your position; my hands enter or leave my pockets, cross or uncross, mimicking however you might stand. 

I am a chameleon, a mockingbird, a shapeshifter. I have found through years of careful observation which things I can do to avoid your displeasure. It’s no problem, really. I work to avoid bumping the table when I stand, or creating cognitive dissonance when I speak. It all has become so effortless that I hardly notice anymore, and neither do you.

In a sense, I reveal your vanity. You like me because I am like you. Familiar, similar. For most of us, we like ourselves so much that what we really crave is an echo. So I, like Echo before me, have lost my own voice in favor of yours.

But I don’t blame you, for you have done nothing wrong. A chameleon changes color to hide from predators, but I am not your prey. I am preyed on by something else. The voices in my own head and the insecurity in my own heart hunt me more than anything you have ever expressed to me or about me. For you are victim to the same hunter. None of us escapes because we are trying to escape the wrong thing. We are all too busy running from chimeras to see the very real and very carnivorous creature that feasts on us even as we breathe.

I wish I could remember what it felt like to be comfortable in my own skin, but I’m no longer sure which skin is mine. Of all the colors I put on, which one is the original? Does it matter? Yes. But it is the hunter I must escape.

I sit before myself as judge, judged, jury, and executioner. And I have no mercy. Every flaw, defect, and hidden blemish is available to me as I weigh my own worth. I change color not for others - they are changing colors too. I change for fear of my own judgment; the words of condemnation I may expect others to speak that I have preemptively spoken for them.

Can I be the colors I choose simply because I like them? Can I be what I wish? I must first kill the hunter.