Reflections.

Swirls of colorful rubber bands; these could be your ponytail holders, stifling your hair, or devices for holding shut plastic bags of newly-cut fruits consisting of cut-up pieces of salty pineapples with long chopsticks to spear them with, and more plastic bags inside plastic bags holding sugar and spice. Q-Tips clean out the insides of waxy coconuts, and pink ribbons from presents look for their wrapping.

In this synthetic island of layered straws and bottle caps, we swim and get caught in remnants of capitalistic dreams of mountains of glory. These dreams pile high and become rubble, while under-dissolved leftovers float to the surface.

This black pool of choking greed travels together, sheep-like, in a flock. It embraces edges and feels the need to get in touch with land-related objects, kissing the shores and licking our boats. It won’t leave us alone, although we discarded the flock long ago in our efforts to climb to the top triangle of the pyramid of lies we tell ourselves.

We try to chop through this plastic cloud with our boat and its mighty engine. The flock, though in a box, cannot be contained. It can be dissected into smaller parts, which return to the captain of the herd. It ultimately mocks us.

On the edge of the boat we peer down into the black sea of scum and try to see ourselves in it. The polluted peer back up and attempts to find its salvation.

Swirls of color turn into puzzles of the mind. We witness our past in these pools of plastic, and all that must be cleansed ultimately returns to us.