Make a List of 10 things
Plastic is more than 10
“I tell people, Make a list of ten things you hate and tear them down in a short story or poem. Make a list of ten things you love and celebrate them.
When I wrote Fahrenheit 451 I hated book burners and I loved libraries. So there you are.” – Ray Bradbury
PROMPT: Make a list of 10 thing you hate or 10 things you love. Either tear them down or celebrate them in any genre of writing you prefer.
social media
patriarchy
violence against women
feeling isolated
the work of being alive
climate change
plastic
facial hair
being overweight
all the crappy food and the fact that I don’t eat well b/c of the way we make food in this world and the way food tastes good -- or the way we are programmed to love the way food tastes and why oh why
plastic every piece of plastic ever made still exists-- This is a refrain that may not be 100 percent true but only has to be a tiny bit true to be 100 percent awful, and this refrain plays itself over and over in my head daily -- it undo's me, it freezes me into place And makes me lose hope. I can see here. I can see there -- Here is, well, here and now, the beforetime where we are all only slightly awake or waking up and there’s not nearly enough effort being made and people are individuals and individuals are so precious and so nothing shifts. and there is there -- that aftertime which is inevitable, which is the setting for so many novels and films and we don’t have to work too hard to picture it because it’s been drawn for us it’s been visualized already. I can see here and I can see there but what lives in the in-between isn’t known -- and some individuals are bigger than me and you. Some men can climb their way to space on a ladder of their own making and they are the bridge to everywhere but they don’t want to know it. they have a button to push, or maybe more than one and they aren’t willing to push it-- every piece of plastic ever made still exists -- there are hills we drive by now and then with pipes growing out of them -- hills to hide the waste we don’t know what to do with. it’s been visualized already and it’s getting harder to hide.
A poem I wrote at WWKC (The Writing Workshop KC) from a prompt.
Another banger, Zed!
One thing I do about plastic is to pick up plastic bottles that have been discarded along the road or sidewalk. I take them home to put in our recycling bin. I know that they may not end up being recycled, but at least I tried. And it makes me feel better. Part of my reason for picking up trash is thinking of the person walking along the trail after me - I want to make their experience better.