The skyline is a range of mountains that surround us on all sides they reach about the same height all the way across and resemble a wall.
I am at the bottom of a fish bowl.
Just above that dark structure the sky is a hazy green which transitions into hazy blue as it ascends vertically. Overcrowding the first two layers: long and lazy clouds, they turn from black to grey, to purple then to a bright salmon orange as your eyes follow them sideways— closer to the sun. Above that the sky is blue, lighter, still all clean and unbreathed. Above that pink clouds, stretch their limbs like sleepy housecats, fur splashed purple like bruises and wine stains. The neon mass conceals the rest of the sky until the blue steadies-out, turning nighttime, resting like the ocean from afar.
The moon is a curved grin on the bottom, a perfect crooked smirk from my position here above the murky pool, resting on the fake rock mass— Orange like expired oxygen.
Inside the house Jim tells Wendy to clean the pool. The Cheshire Cat is laughing at me as I look up.
There is one star directly above the moon, their distance apart from each other is the precise length of my forefinger if I hold it up to my eye and close the other. I don't know if it's the North Star, but it's so far the only one bright enough to shine-out through this thick veil of SOCAL fumes and advertisements.
By the time I finish writing this the clouds have turned a sickly brown, then all a smoky grey. The skyline still shines; greener more toxic and honest, like the body of water below me.
The colors all die down, one shade at a time.
Like whoever is editing this picture simply dragged a decisive finger on the brightness setting backward to reveal the darkness. The curtain is now lowered not raised: the contrast cranked to full. Full-dressed I light a cigarette and step off. The water takes me in with open arms and wet kisses.
