the blue sky warps and curves

on the opposite side of the water's surface.

my last few bubbles of air escape,

slipping hastily to the clear, watery membrane above,

blurring the view of a new world,

a world i thought i knew but is now

strange and exciting.

i lie like a fish at the sea blue bottom,

absorbing strands of shimmery light

through my shaded goggles.

there's a brief moment where i know

i have surely sprouted feathery gills

and transformed into a sea creature,

with slippery webbed toes and hands

and purpled turquoise scales.

but the worn, knotted trees, wavy and distorted,

call from above, in dire need

of me to breathe their suffocating oxygen

and manufacture their life-giving

dioxide of carbon, and, well,

who am i to argue with such sound logic?

upwards and onwards, through ocean's ether

i fly, eyes locked on that azure sky

made novel by a few simple feet

of chlorinated water.

sputtering and gasping, i breathe in the new world gratefully.