I cut my heels with a shell,
her concave, smooth white surface
slicing open my body to the world.

I thought I'd see the ocean,
with all of the water in my body flooding out,
hearing every salty breath,
and smelling the frothy turquoise, foamy mess;
I thought I'd finally become one with her,
and it'd fill in the rest of my thirty percent frame.

I wanted to be like water,
but I had forgotten all the pollution,
and so through my wounds came bottles of nothing, plastic rash strings, shattered glass,
an allergic, asthmatic shutdown,
my body flopping and deflating
like a dying fish.

I didn't realize how much
comes with being like the water.