Dear plastic water bottle,

If I ever gave an award for most political object on campus, you would be the winner. The material you are made of is unnatural, you damage our planet by merely existing. Yet you always are trying to help in any way possible. You are filled with water, stored, sold, the water is consumed and you are trashed away like you were never there. I think many of us would rather forget you ever existed.

And yet, I see so much more in you. There’s more to you than your contents and your politics. There is your shape. Your material. Your color and your lack of color.

You can serve as a sort of bat. An extension of the human body. A tool for playful clobbering.

You can be shaped and molded. Made to fit places you shouldn’t, made to do things you couldn’t. I will never forget the time I saw 100 of your kind tied together into a Christmas tree for a student dorm.

The sounds you make are surprising. First there is the one my father hates, the sharp noise of your deformation. Then there’s the sounds you make when things are inside you, whether it is water, seeds, rocks, or whatever. But my favorite is the sound you make with wind. It takes some practice, but once you’re rather empty, one can blow wind into you at a certain angle and you will play a specific note! I long for the day an ensemble will play a symphony with your wind.

Many of us hate you, but few of us have failed to love you. You and the many ways you interact with us.

I’m sorry you were born into this world that pushes you away. But know that as time goes on, humans may very well begin to see your value beyond the first use. Your value as a companion. As a friend. …Or as an “interactive.”

Love,

~Carlos