Reflecting Pool

Airplane, 10/14/11

In the pool of diversity

I looked at my reflection

and saw

how shallow I was.

But first

I saw the child on a leash

all the women I swore to myself

were less attractive

the girl with the rainbow-hued hair

and her boyfriend in camouflage

the woman whose eyes didn't quite align.

I saw the man--

if you would even call it that--

wit the skin melting off his face,

one arm a prosthetic hook

and the other, severed knobs.

I saw his hair--straw, false, doll-like

eyes that had deteriorated into salmon-colored beads.

My first thought:

not human

alien

dangerous, soulless.

And as I secretly prayed

to the god I don't have

that I would not be forced into contact with that man,

I realized

I am the one who is

not human