The Metamorphosis of MARINA Is Complete With “Butterfly”

It was already apparent earlier this year, with the release of her first poetry collection, Eat the World, that MARINA has had butterflies on her brain. More than that, though, is of course the notion of metamorphosis. Becoming the person that you were meant to become your entire life. As MARINA approaches that “scariest of ages” for women—her forties—this idea has infiltrated her ruminations in the past couple of years. Indeed, Eat the World even has a poem in it called “Butterflies,” which goes, “I laugh easily/I wish I didn’t./It comes from teetering on the edge/Of someone else’s desires/It comes from/Complying/Not wanting to cause discomfort to others/Fuck others./Why do I have to bear/The weight of the discomfort?/Let’s sit in this crevice of awkward silence together./So you can absorb how you/Stained my soul/Crushed my spirit.”

This sentiment is also most definitely present in the lyrics to “Butterfly,” which announce, “I won’t let nobody treat me like you do.” Other poems in the collection are notably geared toward the simultaneous joy and pain of change, of fully comprehending what you will and will not tolerate at a certain stage in life. For instance, in “I don’t want the same anymore,” MARINA laments, “I am aware of/how comfortable/I am being ignored/how comfortable/I am living/on a tightrope/waiting for a man’s/attention to somersault/and land on me./More disconcerting/is when he/communicates frequently/Trains of texts/arriving curiously/on time.” She then insists, “I don’t want to be prey/for old patterns/I’ve read books, taken courses/gone to therapy/Please believe me, God/when I say:/I don’t want the same anymore.”

However, it is the poem entitled “Cocoon” that serves as the most obvious precursor to her latest single (“Butterfly” being designed, of course, to “kick off a new era”). For it is in “Cocoon” that MARINA reflects on the agony of transformation, how it’s often so much easier—a.k.a. more comfortable—to stay the same. As she puts it, “I want my old life back/but it’s gone/I’ve metamorphosed into a wonky/butterfly/Antennae jagged/I creep back into/my cocoon/hoping/it’s not too/late to/transform.” And, luckily, it isn’t—no matter how old you are. As such, by the end of the poem, MARINA comes to the realization, “This cocoon will be/a casket if I don’t/start living soon/If I don’t escape/this room, so/I start to/rap my wings on/my honeycombed/tomb/A quiet promise in my/mind: ‘I will free/myself soon’/Eventually decay/splits/my walls/wide open/the rot has got/me angry/hot/(Becoming a butterfly/is not what I thot).” Yes, a play on words with “thought” and “thot”—and, like Marina, becoming a butterfly is not what most other people thought either (least of all “glamorous”). Assumed, perhaps, that becoming a butterfly, so to speak, is all beauty and majesty with no painstaking work put in before and at the beginning of the transformation. 

In the video for “Butterfly,” directed by Aerin Moreno (best known for his work with Tate McRae and Madison Beer), MARINA speaks to the slow burn of that transformation by opening with a scene of herself lying in a darkened boudoir. Slowly, but surely, the light starts to trickle in as she makes movements with her hand and body that signify, in a sense, some type of “orientation” to this new “carapace” of hers. One that will also reflect her new mindset. And yes, her whole wearing a bustier while writhing on a bed look is very Madonna reminiscent. 

As she gets accustomed to the light that keeps filling the room with a stronger and stronger intensity, she raises a hand over her eyes to help slightly block it out. But it doesn’t take long for her to lap it up entirely as she grows comfortable in this new skin. Enough to dance with lithe abandon in the next scene, which features a “series of MARINAs” in a sequined leotard against a black backdrop before Moreno then leads into interspersing scenes of her in black and white, presenting, again, a slew of multiple MARINAs that look as though they’re inside a kaleidoscope. 

Making her way to the next room—the living room—calls for another costume change, with MARINA opting for a pinstripe corset over white shapewear, complemented by a single sheer black dress sock with red stilettos. It is here that she also kneels before the couch with prayer hands as she angelically warns, “Trust no bitch/Even people that you love.” She then shows off some very flexible “dancer’s poses” that might even give Addison Rae a run for her money. This as she declares, “I can flip a switch quicker than a blade does/So I’m saying goodbye/Goodbye.” In other words, the true butterfly has no room in her life for those who no longer suit her. Hence, the opening verse, “Sometimes people gonna let you down/Not everybody’s meant to stick around/I feel the pain and you feel it too/But I won’t let nobody treat me like you do.” So it is that MARINA appears to come to terms with the freedom of her independence. And, to be sure, freedom can be just as daunting as dependence. Which is why MARINA also delivers the somewhat dichotomous lyrics, “I’ve had enough of being on my own/All these people I don’t know/I guess I’ll make it on my own.” 

Because, in the end, what choice do any of us really have but to do just that? After all, MARINA isn’t wrong when she mentions that even the ones you love can’t be trusted/counted on. That, sometimes, “love” can be more stifling than it is freeing. Which is why, ultimately, all you have is yourself when shit hits the fan. Or, to quote that old aphorism: “You’re born alone and you die alone” (granted, whoever said it didn’t seem to factor in the existence of twins and various forms of -lets and -uplets). Thus, the liberated chorus (delivered in a higher sort of pitch, almost as though intended to be coming from an actual butterfly’s “mouth”), “Yeah, I’m a butterfly/You just never see my energy/I’m already high, floating on a breeze.” Away from anyone and everything that might stunt her full potential—her complete state of growth. And so, it’s only natural for MARINA to caution of what it takes to get this free, “To become a butterfly/Parts of me had to die.” Ergo, her true self can at last flourish.