I Never Learned to Swim

i stood in front of the mirror
staring at that girl's body

she was misshapen -
her thighs too big
her hips too wide
her chest too small
her face too full
her hair too curly

and i looked in that girl's eyes
and she looked at me, angry
her dark eyes swirled with self-hate and confusion

she couldn't understand the things
inside her head
she didn't understand why
she felt everything was her fault
why she felt nothing for anyone
and everything for someone simultaneously

why, no matter how many books
or articles she could read,
that she put faith into horoscopes and a
higher power she - no matter how fervently she prayed -
didn't know even existed and she raised her hand
pressed it to the glass, shadow extended

i was compelled to touch my mirror, too
and as our fingertips connected
she turned black and i turned blue
and we both cried and bled for no reason at all

and her uncertainty flooded
deep and welled inside me
like a tsunami, the waters receded too far away
and the two of us never saw trouble until all of a sudden

our worlds were flooded
and every direction we looked we saw nothing
except thousands upon thousands of people that had drowned
and looked just like us, tangled curls and dirty fingernails

and we broke,
like levees,
we crumbled to the ground loud,
like falling buildings,
and we roared so mighty
the ground shook and the sky cried

her black skin pressed against me
and my blue assaulted her
we were the most hideous creatures in existence
except that alternately, while we floated
around our corpses and prayed,
we thought there was some kind of beauty
in going out of your head,
and not knowing what to do

but we couldn't ever find that release
to rebuild our cities and scavenge for food
and so when we climbed on top of two bodies,
to float in our ocean, and looked down at the cluttered waters
we fell into our reflections and we drowned, too