//PLASTIC//
by Florence Jones
My sister logs everything she eats onto an app.
The milk in her tea, the butter on her toast.
It makes me think of plastic.
Plastic food we played with as kids before it was something we were scared of.
Plastic wrapped,
that sticky kind that will be on this planet forever.
Sticky on my skin.
They vacuum seal it,
suffocate runner beans and baby sweetcorns to keep their uniform size.
I’ve never been uniform size.
And I say I don’t want to be.
But late at night when it’s just me and the mirror I know I do.
Plastic on my skin, my waist, tightening like the knot of a plastic bag.
“It’s everywhere” I say
“Microplastics in everything, in everyone, killing us slowly- small shards”
like the jokes I make.
It seems playful enough, bright colours, pointed edges.
But overtime those jokes build up
and it’s suffocating.
Sliding the plastic squares around to try and make the picture fit.
But I don’t tell.
Because when you’re made of too much plastic,
it starts to look like vanity.
