ai shark woman

it's the car crash syndrome.
a fear of looking away & a fear of looking.
i don't know what
i'm watching for but i spend thirty minutes
scrolling through a tiktok page
that is all ai generated. it is of a researcher woman
with a great white shark. the shark looks
terrified as if he is trapped inside a dream.
those deep blackberry eyes. 
his jagged teeth. her misshapen nose. 
her freckles stolen from a deep wound.
they both look like they're calling for help. 
the comments are scattered. some people
who say, "this is clearly ai" & others
that say, "i am worried for this woman"
& "do we know her name?"
her face shifts slightly from video to video.
skin putty. the bone beneath the bedsheet. 
sometimes she is ugly. other times,
gorgeous. in some videos she is ocean swimming 
& scraping barnacles from the bodies of whales. 
i make myself turn it off. worry that 
i have watched for too long & some of it
has rubbed off on me. in our internet now
everything is contagious. if you watch
one shark ai video for too long &
soon it is all you will see. i am swimming.
i have a butter knife & i am cleaning 
the not-real whales with her. we are far
from any piece of land. gutless waves.
her eyes eat each other. the sharks. 
all the sharks. they do not circle. they do not
ask to devour us. instead, they wait
& watch. i see them everywhere now.
in the mirror. in the bathtub. on the sidewalk.
the video i dislike most from the account
is of a beached megalodon, an ancient giant shark.
the researchers stand inside his colossal mouth. 
sky tinted like a bruise. they snap pictures. he waits.