Dear Ben,

I hope you are doing well. I know that you don’t see me for what I am, but I have always been there for you. I support you in every step of your journey and you never acknowledge me for it. You use and abuse me every day and I fall for it every time. Early on in your life, I surrounded you when you were just born cradling you in your crib. I comforted you when you were alone in the dark after your parents supposedly put you to sleep. I guided you through life, everything you touched I embraced your warmth and reciprocated it. I gave you joy when you raced up my wall, speedily climbing up my rocks, and ringing my bell for the finish. I gave you entertainment as you could always depend on me to brighten your day whenever you picked up your favorite toy. I was a familiar face, something that you saw wherever you went and made you know that you weren’t alone

 As you got older I became even more prominent in your life and I stuck by being your anchor there and now. I keep you from regressing in life and allow you to push forward. I held your water for you when you couldn’t, I protected you when doing dangerous stunts, and I held your feet together and took the beating for you when running, I do everything for you, but you don’t respect me? You gave me up, discarded me, threw me aside and denounced my usage when I became fully attached to our life together and I now know that I am a fool for thinking that it was going to stay that way forever. It took me too long to realize that you never did respect me. When you were young you threw me when angry, slapped me when I wasn’t working, and I was happy to take the pain if it relieved yours, but I won’t settle for being used any longer and I want you to know that I won’t be there for you. You’ll have no one without me, the one thing that supported you, your lifeline will vanish and I will watch you perish, cause I will last. I will still be there when you are going into that casket, you cannot escape me.

With remorse,

Plastic

Dear Plastic,

I’m sorry. Thank you for taking care of me whilst growing into the person that I am today. Like me, there are things that have grown with me. Relationships, the state of the world, and people's interests, but not you. You have stayed the same throughout everything and that is why everyone is leaving you. Your clinginess and the problems that come with it are what drag us humans down. You never want to part with anyone and when you do, you simply last. You stay on the earth for no good reason and fill the planet’s landfills and our beloved oceans. When we try to get rid of you for good you take revenge on us by leaving large amounts of CO2. Why do you keep this silly vendetta? I’m not saying that we don’t need you, cause we do. Without you, we wouldn’t have lots of wonderful things that give us joy, protection, resources, and general happiness. So many of my fondest memories have you in the epicenter. This one memory I have of when I was young, it was regionals track and field. I was 6 years old, I was wearing you plastic, You were helping me run as fast as I could. I could hear you in the audience with cameras shuddering and I could see you on every cell phone recording me. This was the race that I was going to do it. This was the race where I qualified for nationals in the 400m.

I hope what I have said has helped you some in your quest to find someone  that you think respects you, but you aren’t going to find them. I wish there was an easier way of saying this, but your lifespan is far too long. We can’t seem to live without you, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep you around forever. We have other resources that don’t have the psychological problems that you do and they don’t make the planet into a gas trap. Metal and paper can do everything that you can do, but you are still valuable. I hope you fix your contempt issue because we desperately want those good times for the generations to come. We want our kids to be able to ride a bike, rock climb, go on roller coasters, play sports, create melodies from instruments and so much more. I want you to know that we didn’t desert you, we just want what's best for all of us.

With love, 

Ben