I wipe the steam off the bathroom mirror and see what I have become.

I am human. I am not perfect, though I try to be.

The more perfect I try to be, the more flaws seem to etch themselves deep into my being.

The fire that once blazed in my heart has been extinguished by all the inexorable waves

that have been thrown upon me.

I cough up sea foam and weeds.

I just want to lay staring at the sun;

but the sun is gone, you killed it, just as you killed me,

consuming my soul in the hope that it will make you feel something, anything.

So, I pick a fight.

But as soon as you start to yell

I turn around, trying desperately to backtrack:

Stuck.

I can feel pain; why does everyone think that I cannot feel pain?

Do I need to cut myself open, slice clean through my now grey skin to prove, that just like       them,

I bleed?

And you don’t love me, how could you?

Look at you and look at me.

I can never erase you,

every word you spoke me, every smile you you gave me, every time you touched me.

God I just want to erase you!

So I surrender, the water embraces me, surrounds me

too tightly, I can hardly breath.

That’s okay, I don’t  want to breath.

It presses against me, my thighs, my stomach,

forces open my mouth. But I keep my eyes tightly shut.

The rustle of the waves pulls at my clothes.

Fight? I’m so tired of fighting.

I’m sinking.

Faster than I thought possible, faster than my throat can swallow

the salty gulps of everything but air.

I cannot breath.

I am suspended in the icy waters, with no indication of direction.

I cannot feel my body

because it is not my body, it was never my body.

Each wave pounds again and again

Slamming me into the rocks, never satisfied

until I’m bruised black and blue.

I try to swim,

the current pulls me back down, but that’s not what they’ll say

when they find my mangled body floating among the rocks.

They’ll say: “Oh what a pity she drowned. You should not jump in the ocean

if you cannot swim back to shore.”

It’s your fault

It pounds in my head like a hammer.

It’s your fault

Maybe it’s all in your head, there are no bruises, no water, and no current.

It’s your fault.

I stood on that high ledge with a smile carved into my face,

and I jumped. I bent my knees and I jumped far off the ledge.

I threw myself into the water and dove down

farther and farther, deep under water.

To discover a completely new world I have never until now, allowed myself to be part of.

But in all of my excitement, I lost my direction,

forgetting that I need to breathe air into my lungs.

So now I sink

down to the bottom of the rocky ocean floor.

Water fills my lungs, my blue fingers still tracing your name in my mind;

a name that I will never be able to force out.

My eyes close for the last time, but finally I see.

I was merely in love with the idea of being in love.

I don’t love you, and you sure as hell never loved me.