Plastic

Mine is a plastic love. Produced readily, pollutes easily. It can take on any colour and sometimes let you see right through. Lethal in small doses, fatal otherwise. Tender and toxic. It is the fabric of dollhouses, the stuff of garbage. An elastic love that stretches itself, and the limits of what it can do. It has survived a hundred years, and will endure a thousand more. Useless and useful and listless and wistful. It can destroy a planet and often be a fistful. It is the algae laced bottom of a water bottle, the hard yellow hat of a construction worker at the throttle. The kind you hate on the internet and heart in real life. The inflatable raft in an infinity pool, a lifejacket. The junk that fills rooms and takes over the streets. Held to the lips and knocked around by shoes. You can always tell when it’s burning, it can suffocate. It smoulders. You can bend it but never tear it. Negate it but never compare it. You can share it. It is not degradable.