I soaked a tissue and pressed the tattoo into my forearm, just below the bend. It was just one of those little paper-backed ones. But a good one. Supposed to last weeks, not days.

It was a butterfly in a deep blue. The image was so saturated, I thought if I kept watching it I’d catch a glimpse of the air beyond the edge of its wing, like maybe I could discern movement before it took flight.

In my sleep, the tattoo bled. My arm had been tucked up into my chest, my hand under my chin I suppose. The spot blossomed on my bicep. The color that had looked so enchanting on the butterfly looked like a bruise on me.

It’s all just skin-deep.

But here I was thinking—wanting?—something to be different. That butterfly was symbol of transformation, and wasn’t I going to carry it through the world and let it change me, even for a week?

And it did, I suppose.

Under the influence of sunscreen, it started peeling away, prematurely, in little scales. I scrubbed the rest away in the shower.

It wasn’t some fantasy rendering, I discovered after the fact. My temporary friend had been a morpho butterfly—morph like “shape.”

On the real thing, the blue color doesn’t come from pigmentation: it’s a structural color. It happens because of how light travels through the thing’s cells, and because of the angle at which you view the thing. It’s iridescence.

But the tattoo was pigment, and it bled in my sleep, the parts of my arm folded together. Did you have those lessons in art class, in symmetry? Spread the paint, fold the paper, and peel it back to watch the mirror image form.

In second grade, we filled construction paper meadows with butterflies, those blobs of tempera paint forming mottled and many-colored patterns.

Maybe I wanted the stakes that low again. Don’t worry, they can’t hurt themselves. Non-toxic, washes off with soap.

I can’t hurt myself if I keep it shallow, right?

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