Chameleon

In this panel, a 13 year old boy escapes
Running, with the runs running through
his toilet soaked black curls
and his Johnny The Homicidal Maniac magazines
sprinkling SOS signals across the parking lot
hopping on his bike, wiping the tears and snot
the boy doesn’t dare look back
at the bully punks that just pushed
his head into a porcelain prison in these mall stalls
Next panel:
our hero sleeps and dreams
fabricating themes he holds near
like a teenage boy popping pimples in a mirror-
he escapes into a fantasy world
of X-men. X-files, and X-sided di
creating new superheroes
He wants to blend in,
and he creates The Chameleon!
Flashback:
our boy expresses himself
in a faded black Op-Ivy T-shirt
stained with the smell of body odor and dirt
thrift store dress pants cut away at the knees
threads faying away each day like his self-esteem
He doesn’t fit in with the skinheads
and they let him know when he tried
to join them for a game of hacky sack
But they stripped the UNITY patch
off his backpack and told him to fuck off
He doesn’t fit in with the gangbangers
His hair makes him look like a headbanger
And he would rather spend his money
on Star Wars figurines than weed
But the boy thinks to himself,
I could just change my appearance,
like a chameleon, then everything
would be okay.
He finds out on the internet,
that contrary to popular belief,
chameleons do not display limitless colors
and do not change in a camouflage
reponse to their encounters.
Instead, they change because of
light, mood and temperature,
Underneath the top layer of skin,
is melanin, which is what gives
the various shades to human skin.
He reads on to find that half
of the chameleon species lives
on the Island of Madagascar
so even chameleons are segregationists,
and the truth is we will always have our differences
so we have to find a way to co-exist and live.
Our hero knows this
and all he can hope for is to make it
through this life
He won’t ever change
who he is for any amount
of power bestowed upon him
by a lightning strike,
kryptonite,
mutation,
peer pressure,
or oppression;
someday he could create a comic,
or profess a poem,
to tell others to hang on.
Don’t blend in
We’re not
chameleons
We’re only
Human.