Page 37 - WTP VOl. XIII #2

Luddite
Part of me, a very big part, like 98%, wants to toss this laptop
into the garbage can (which I really shouldn’t do because
it would end up in a landfill and leak rare earth elements)
and write this poem instead with a pen or pencil on a piece of paper.
And that same part of me, which is greater than the sum of the other parts, wants to jettison the television, the smartphone, and the car,
in that order (because I’ll need the car to take the television and the laptop
to the recycling center, and the phone to pay the cathode ray tube recycling fee
with my recycling app). That’s the side of me—the side that I am on—
that is against airplanes, cruise ships, credit cards, online banking, video games, social media, free shipping, and plastic. All plastic. Especially the plastic
that protects our food and prevents waste. And especially the plastic
that’s used in hospitals to save our lives: disposable syringes, surgical gloves, blood bags, IV tubes, catheters, plastic heart valves. Because what’s the point of saving our lives when the plastic is killing us? Or of protecting our food with plastic when the plastic is in our food, and in our water, and in our air,
and in our poetry—just look at all the plastic in this poem! And I wasn’t even thinking of writing about plastic. But here it is. It’s everywhere! And a big part of me wants to toss this poem because of all the plastic in it. But a small part, like maybe
2 parts per million, kind of likes this poem and wants to put it out there in the world.
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