My Crocodile Body
Ava Ploeckelman
I pick at the skin around 
my nails, a replacement for biting 
them, and sometimes I am surprised to 
find my skin still soft. It always looks
the same, but it should feel like the rough 
hide of a crocodile. I lie 
to strangers. I claim to be younger 
than I am so that 
it is illegal to bother me, I pretend to 
have teeth. I pretend I am 
a protected species. 
I have a long face, even 
when I smile: teeth interlocked, breathing through 
my road rash skin, I would never try to intimidate, but 
I don’t want to fix my ability to make proselytizers 
leave me alone, I don’t want to fix 
the assumptions people make about swimming around me. 
I am young and ancient and unchanged. 
Darwin doesn’t like me. 
I could change, I do 
sometimes, but I am only good at one thing,
I am so good underwater, that nobody else thinks I should change, 
Nobody would call me static, or unadaptable. 
Only specific. I am specific. 
Contributor's Note
Ava Ploeckelman is a junior studying Biology and minoring in Classical Studies. She is a member of the service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, which technically makes her a frat bro. For fun, she takes ballroom dance classes. She hopes she will never have to use it for high-stakes international espionage, but she is prepared for the possibility. She participates in an URCA laboratory that studies termite microbiomes, and denies any allegations of being a mad scientist.
