Paper

I am flat. So flat I am paper, brittle and dry, devoid of life. Just here. Existing. I want to abundant colourful life. Alas all I do is sit here unmoving, an invisible, ordinary nothingness that has been allocated to isolation. I am just a dry old piece of paper waiting for the rubbish collection, the fussied tidy up, here where the fan blew me down to act as a mat for dust bunnies. I am a flat white nothingness a void of existence.

Fold me into a paper plane and throw me through the blue skies. Let me soar and feel the wind rush under my little paper wings. Let me feel the glory of the sun on my wings and the simple beauty of the world as I dive softly to settle into the dewy glistening grass as I am quickly surrounded by an army of insects seeking shelter and food.

Use your delicate, creative hands to fold me into a paper crane and hang me from a mobile so I dangle over your gorgeous tiny human, fat fingers and bright eyes twinkling, melodious giggles erupting as the breeze blows me in patterns above the cot.

Write your grandmother's favourite chocolate cake recipe on me in your easy drawling handwriting, the text unevenly spaced and sweetly messy. Then take me to the shop. Pull me from your cluttered darkened bag where I was wedged between your lip gloss and the keys and let me see and smell the people, the foods as you trail up the aisle hunting ingredients among the blustering chorus of activity.

Little human, fold me in your best most perfect alignment of creases, four times to shape a card and use your sweet little hands, covered in biscuit crumbs to draw art for your aunty for her birthday. Make me into a treasured message of love. Coloured crayons textured on my bare dry skin, tattoos of childhood thoughts forever etched artistry.

Artist, sketch your most favourite place on my skin, send me into a world you have created by using simple pencil and pen strokes before layering me with water colour and making me art to be stared at and adored.

Author unbridle your dreams and unblock your consciousness, let your subconscious flow and write the most profound message your soul yearns to share. Watch it flow naturally without pause across my skin, your words changing the future for those who read it.

Gasp, someone has scooped me up. This could be it. Oh please don't let it be the bin. See the beauty and infinite possibility in the blank canvas you hold casually in your hands. Oh I am not paper. I am me again. The paralysis has passed and my communion with the floor while immovable and locked in, has come unstuck. Now I am back where I started.

I will not fly, or watch over your babeling. I will not be carried to the shop with a treasured recipe etched on me, I will not carry the wishes of a little human on her aunties birthday, I will not live in artist's world or carry the words meant to change the futures of those who read me.

I am just paper again. Flat. Unnoticed. But now I am crumpled, dirty and I have several tears in my skin. There is that. I have character.