But I’m not unique, I’m just like all the others in the pack. Waiting ever so patiently on the shelf for someone to pick me, to choose me, to love me. My whole livelihood valued at a mere £1.25.

I was made for this but when I see what is happening to my brothers and sisters, the reality of my horrific fate shocks me to my chewy, sweet core. Your long, bony, twisted fingers ravage my single-use plastic home and mutilate me between those frightful fingers, ripping me away from the rest of my fruit flavoured family. I’m jolted towards a dark hole filled with yellow, crooked fangs.

This is it

… the happy world of haribo.

I will be waiting for you, until next time.

I am a soul survivor operating in the shadowy depths of the cleaning cupboard. I try hard to scream for help when I see that door sorrowfully creak open but forget I have no voice so I just fall over. I just give up.

Stop making me feel rubbish, I will stand for it no longer.

I used to be gorgeous, so elegant. Hand-carved. Marble. Now look at me; hideous. A lump of steel. Oh how the mighty have fallen. If only you were more open minded. Stick a poster on me, paint me a fun colour. I deserve to be seen. Just please stop complaining, I am only doing my job.

Gemma and Elinor

I am a general waste bin I got me lining. I may smell of shit but I need to be in the room whether you like it or not. Once a week I need to empty my smelly load into a dump truck. Although I appriciate being used everyday it makes me angry when people put the wrong rubbish in me when mixed recycling is stood right there next to me. Its not all bad though as I get to stay inside unlike the Biffa Bins outside which are weathered and filthy due to years of mistreatment.

I am a window, yet you treat me like a wall...

Our laces could intertwine if you play your cards right. Enjoys cozy nights in drying by the fire, after dancing in the rain. Interested in an athletic, well-worn tennis guy up for a gal that’s a bit rough around the edges. I’ll give you a run for your money. Not someone to be walked over. Not like a skinny high-heel b*tch but just as beautiful. I am a diamond in the rough. I want someone to help me clean up my act and we can grow together. We’ll make the perfect pair. Currently live in my boxy Falmouth flat but ready to think outside it.

Massive heart – Will you be my soulmate?

I am heavy and square; my thoughts are not my own. People consider me as unimaginative, never truly get to know me for me. Forgotten in the cobwebs, only searched out for by unamused students, I’m unhappy here. I have many needs, yet everyone seems to use me. Please can someone get to know me…People tend to say I project on others, but that’s just my purpose in life. Ventilations are a part of my body structure, yet I never have the chance to speak of my own feelings. My lens allows me to have an insight on everyone and everything, yet no one knows my name.

I think I need therapy.

My blood-lust; unquenched. My wretched ancestors spilt the blood of the French monarchy and what do I do? Slice feeble slivers of paper from within my plastic shackles. My life is relentless and the end is not in sight. Free me from this torment be it in my demise or that of others.

I'm over that now. Mostly. I still leave one of my switches on just in case, looking for a second of attention in nobody's line of sight.

They tried to fit 4 people on me last Wednesday. They knew it was a bad idea. I knew it was a bad idea. But they didn’t listen to me now did they? Now my left cushion is all saggy.

My mate got a cushy job as a therapy chair the other week. It pays well, but I think he’s started feeling all the pressure.

If you check my middle pocket who knows what you’ll find. Maybe some loose change? Just kidding; students don’t have any money. Even if there was, it’s not worth it for the fried egg fluid and crusty croissant crumbs.

I got a couple tear drops on me close to that last deadline. I know books can make people cry but I didn’t realise making one is just as heart wrenching.

Then cue all the juicy gossip. Did you know that Nikki made a first year cry? At least that’s what I heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone else. I thought it would be Ashley.

What about Jennifer? She made out with, not one, not two, but four people’s boyfriends. And one person’s girlfriend. Cheeky~.  Mangos brings out the worst in people. Or the best, according to my confidant.

The days of being shrouded in this corner have steeped and poisoned my true purpose. The original classroom was home. Mr Arnold, and his whiteboard markers couldn’t keep their hands of me. With every spoken word a written one would follow. Algebra equations, brackets, percentages, and long hard divisions. As each sum became harder the pen would work its massaging magic from top to bottom. Solving, creating, and documenting the teaching. Countless bright, brilliant white eyes fixated on my pure, shiny, milky skin. Alas. All good things must end. Thirty years later and I have woken in a feverish educational hell. Is this a sick joke? The Graphic Design upper studios.  It is here that I spend most of my days steeping with dust and hearing the echoes of words that are placed into a computer rather than written in display on my skin.

I am the object that has become a transparent board of empty value. I await the day, an eager student wants to share their work on me, using their whiteboard markers to share and create.

Look at me! I’m horrible! A smudgy stinky, rusty mess! I watch how you all type with your fancy metal boxes, always looking past me. White board pens, my cousins- have you seen them? I was told they went on a holiday, somewhere called the, what’s it called, a been? A bine? Bin? You always misspell it. Maybe you design kids should’ve just drawn the picture…

Once I figure out how to move on my own, its over for you.

I don’t want to sound fragile but I am. I can’t help it. I try so hard to be transparent but it just ends up with everyone looking straight through me. Everyone wants me to be perfect and pristine all the time but when I am, I’m ignored. I’m just noticed for my imperfections, like when I’m ugly and soiled people have a problem but no one helps until it’s too awful to bear.

On another note, I feel like I will never be able to reach my full potential. I have so many layers to me- just trying to be warm and inviting but whenever I’m open people get cold shoulders and just shut me off again. And when I’m broken people just complain about me. 

I will never be like the skylights in their north facing clique, acting all high and mighty. Physically as well! I will never fit in, I am destined to stand in the corner forever. Alone. 

Forever. 

AND to make it all worse. My handle keeps falling off.

I feel like I'm in a clingy relationship. I never get alone time, and I always feel like I'm sucked dry. They can't go anywhere without me. I am their only support system. It's like they never care about my feelings, I never even get washed. Every morning I'm filled with something cold and aggressively wacked in a bag. It’s the same thing every day, I feel suffocated. I always feel half empty, never half full. It's going to be the same cycle until I'm thrown out and replaced.  

a window to the out or inside, no substance, nor body. a more fortunate few include shutters, and blinds, to provide purpose for the dwellers below, but the majority, and me, have no substance. they even remove me, open me up and defeat my purpose, to let the cold outside in. things land on me, rain on me, i heat up and cool down with no end in sight. since the 83 window revival our life spans have been increased, exponentially, to force our families to remain eternally within our walls indifferently.

Once a year I'm released from the dark damp confines of the attic and brought out to watch over the festivities.

I have only ever seen the winter but if i’m lucky i’m placed on a windowsill where I get to watch the occasional snow storm. It’s the only time I feel alive, but of course I'm not alive, well not in the way humans perceive.

I symbolise a time of peace and joy, if only I could feel that for myself, alas I must only watch the children play and eat and sing for I am but a lonesome nutcracker passed on through generations. I watch these kids grow old and die only to start all over again with the next ones. Oh what short lives humans have.

Time’s running out before I’m put away again into darkness. I suppose at least I get to emerge again but I worry, what if one day I am forgotten, maybe this Christmas is my last. I better enjoy it while I can.

At least the green bin is being spared from the horrors of mushy tea bags, greasy food leftovers and banana peels...

What’s even worse, people don’t even ask me if I want to have any of that stuff inside of me. They just dump it inside, and I have no lid, no shield to protect me from. I look left and wonder: Why does my brother have a fancy shaped opening? Does that make it better than me? Maybe I am the black sheep in this family...”