You held me,

A clean piece of paper, 

And within minutes, 

I felt a nudge from the tip of your pencil,

And there was no such thing as clean,

And in no way was I ever to look the same again. 

The stabs of the dancing lead did not bother me,

For every error, 

The pressure of an eraser removed the faults,

And I felt almost reassurred,

But the blemishes of grey remained still within the corners of every written word.

The erasures caused a harder blow I had to endure.

A bolder word to replace the old, gentle one,

A thicker grey to oppose the lighter one.

Yet you pressed on, erased harder,

Making holes and a mess of me. 

Eventually you stopped erasing and applied

Slash marks instead.

Stab over stab.

It made it easier to get to the end.

You hold me,

A flawed piece of paper,

And within seconds, 

You take another sheet,

And there was no such thing as me.

Yet, you write the same words

With the same pencil,

But the new sheet does not feel the same pain.