Nothing more than a thin line of metal, folded precisely in its’ recognizable curved shape, tossed carelessly into a pile in the drawer. So easily overlooked, and yet this small paper clip has so much potential, so much history. Years ago, my mom had told me that as a kid she had desperately wanted braces to fit in with her friends, and she had unfolded paper clips and strung them across her teeth. But she hadn’t fooled anybody. In elementary school, I was the principal's favorite- she’d invite me into her office to talk and help with whatever she may have been working on. I remember one day, I sat there alone in her office, piecing together packets and flyers with paper clips, while she went to get us a snack. The secretary walked into the room and startled me so that the box of paper clips and the papers in my hand fell and scattered across the floor. By ninth grade, my mind was a bigger mess than I’d made, and I sat nervously in another office. This wasn’t the welcoming principals office though, it was the pristine and sinister meeting room in the locked psychiatric ward where I awaited the arrival of the treatment team who were to decide my fate. I glanced out the glass windows towards the desk where I knew the nurses sat watching, then down towards my bandaged arms, before reaching quickly across the table and plucking the paper clip from my file. I pocketed the clip and breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that I would have it there for later. The news was bad. Months later I held a paper clip again, slipping it over the signed papers which every patient was given once the doctors deemed them healthy enough-sane enough-for discharge from the program. It was reassuring to neatly arrange it all into a nice pile, held together by a single paperclip; a single paper clip which separated it all from returning to it’s former disorganized chaos. I wouldn’t mind being held together by a paper clip.