A Sheet of Paper
It started as a ray,
Which you drew
On a piece of lined paper,
As a sole point going
In an infinite direction.
You decide to turn it into a segment,
With you and I as the endpoints.
I finally noticed that segment
And began to cherish it.
But you got your pencil
And erased your endpoint from it
Leaving me as a lonely ray
Left going in one direction.
I suddenly found myself intersected
By a different ray.
This time, no one could erase it
As we became an angle.
But you soon came back
With your pencil in hand
Ready to rejoin you and I
Back to our original state.
Suddenly, you drew yourself
Intersecting my newly formed angle,
Turning it into a triangle.
I broke that triangle apart
And remained in your angle.
But you left me as a ray again
And I went back to form
My angle with him twice more.
But I left him again
Since you made me believe
That you would stop erasing yourself.
You erased yourself again,
Wearing a hole through your side of the paper.
This piece of paper fell apart
As I followed suit.
I created numerous holes through that paper,
Making it difficult to tape it back together.
I believed there was no tape
Strong enough to mend it.
There were more holes in the paper
Than anyone ever thought.
He found me a tape strong enough
To mend my side of the paper,
But I did not wish to use it.
He finally made up his mind
And redrew his ray
Going the other direction for good.
I began tearing that paper apart
While shaking uncontrollably
With tearful gasps of air,
Hair strands pulled out,
Bits of skin peeled off,
And breaking that pencil in the process.
That’s when I finally decided
To use the tape.
My side of the paper
Began to patch up.
But the other side was completely
Torn off without warning.
A journey began to search
For that missing half,
But it was nowhere in sight.
I remained a ray
Going in that same direction
Looking for you.
It took many rolls of tape
To patch up the holes.
Although my side of the paper appeared messy,
It was nonetheless patched up.
I attempted to invite others
To intersect my path,
But they drew their paths
In other directions.
I never once abandoned that journey
To find your half of the paper.
You suddenly found the paper
And taped your half,
Which also patched up,
To mine
And we found our rays almost forming
A segment once more.
However, no matter how much we try,
We just cannot seem
To join these two rays together
No matter how much tape we use.
Many people question
Our choice to keep that piece of paper,
But we are not ready
To throw it away.
Maybe we should find
More pieces of paper,
More pencils,
And maybe some glue
To fully bridge that gap
Between our two halves.