A Fish Out Of Water

It's more dreadful than drowning in air
than losing your treasured identity,
youth, beauty, health, mobility,
freedom to choose, to move.

I never chose to be an exhibit
In someone else's nightmare world.

I have all the allure of a shrunken dwarf,
the loss of esteem of a madwoman—
what was once an aquatic dream—
half human, half fish has morphed,
monster-like into a frankensteinian
experimental charade,
now I sit, trapped—
in a bell jar.