Plastic Bag

The first time I watched American Beauty
the thing that wouldn’t escape my mind
was that plastic bag
filmed blowing in the wind.

Only a nihilist
could think it’s the most beautiful thing
that they’ve ever seen.

Because a polymer that can’t decompose.
It isn’t half as beautiful
as the rocky, bumpy, bloody, heart-breaking,
organic mess that is life.

Everything is born, everything grows,
and everything dies in life.
But plastic doesn’t live,
and plastic doesn’t love,
so unless everything means nothing,
the dance of a plastic bag
is not the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen.