How to Recycle Plastic by Victoria Cota Let’s take all the children’s toys and melt them down, create identical plastic bins in which we store our ancient dreams and hollow futures. Basketball shorts and embroidered cardigans. Refrigerated leis, chains of chocolate, fireworks. Self-addressed love letters, adorned in ribbons. You could store your bass trombone, shiny like the moon reflecting the sun. I would store hand-sewn garments and misshapen blue ceramic dogs. We can fill one bin entirely with water, so fresh there are fish inside, and we will name them all individually after our own family. Film photographs stack like collapsed cities. Photos with lots of teeth & geometric sunshine. We would not appreciate the ratio of light to dark tones in the image. There would be no need to collect artillery shells or riot gear. Not a single bin would hold red or blue pins. The masks, the gloves, the plastic can all go to the dump. Just pack yourself up into the most tender objects and pull the plastic lid over your head.
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