There is only plastic on trash island

If rent keeps rising I will pack my bags 

and move to where it doesn’t cost any,

To an island of our own creation

Where all that it means to be human in this century 

is right under your feet.

There are no rolling hills, no lakes, no soil, no soul.

There is only plastic on trash island.

 

Surrounded by my trash, I will have my dinner.

I will cut it up, poke my fork into it, bring it to my mouth, 

and chew.

Chew to my heart’s content I can, 

but it will not soften, it will not shred,

So I swallow and choke.

It will consume us if we keep consuming it.

There is only plastic on trash island.

 

I dress in it;

It gives me pimples on my back, and rashes on my forearm.

But I now dress in it:

Its particles may dislodge themselves in the wash 

and somehow find themselves in the living beating hearts 

of new-born children,

But we now all dress in it

Because there is only plastic on trash island.

 

I ask the mother

‘why do you dress your kids in plastic,

why do you feed it to them too’

‘It’s what I was given’, she replies

‘and I’ve got nothing to win and nothing to lose’

because there is only plastic on trash island.

 

there are no hopes, nor ambitions

no goals or adoration.

there are only sullen gray hearts

and the sound of suffocation

as people drown in all this,

all that we have consumed.

–

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