I am paper.

 

Scribble your name on my corner

and you are only scratching my surface.

 

I am pages bound in books

doorways to people places worlds

sharing every story but my own.

 

I can be your masterpiece.

Sketch draw color paint on me

until I am your ideal of beauty

scribble treble clefs and notes on me

because I am the instrument

and you the composer.

 

Print on me and gloss me over

fill me with lies and when you present me

I become a tool of mass persuasion.

 

You can bend me tear me origami

fold me into any shape you want

I mirror your mind because I don't have one,

until you modify me, I am

blank.

 

I come in a rainbow

redorangeyellowblueindigoviolet

green.

you say I am the root of all evil

but I lost my roots when you cut

me down, stripped me bare,

hacked me into wood chips,

steamed and pressed me dry until I was

flat.

 

I am reduced and re

used and recycled

in time I will wrinkle yellow crumple to dust

be part of the dirt that raised me

and when the next generation

of young sprouts spring forth through me

I will nurture them until the day they become

paper.