One Last Time

Stop, put me down. I don’t need you to drag me along, even if I am paralyzed. Every little movement scrapes another layer of graphite from me. If I were like the human hand which controls me, you would be scrapping my skin off. This graphite tail of mine will not grow back if you rub it away. You are pulling out my hair when you grind my rubber against paper.

You leave me in the worse places, zippered into dark spaces. Every time I am left alone, I pray you will forget me, and it will all end there in peace. The darkness is better than when you hold me down against that blade, and cut away my wooden surface.

Oh, what could my purpose be? To be tortured into recording all your ideas without pay. Am I supposed to work my life away?

Wait, what did you just write?

(looks down) “I’m sorry that this may be our last dance across the paper. Thank you for recording the words I was too scared to say aloud. You pay the bail to get my thoughts out of the jail that is my mind, with your life, writing in your graphite blood. These words are mine, but you wrote them.”

(gasps) Is that a thank you note to me? A love letter. I remember writing these before, while held in the warm embrace of your hand, and dying in your fingers with every sharpening.

Without you, I would be sitting alone, growing cold. I can not move, speak, or do anything on my own. You are the murderer that rescued me from a life on the shelf, like an unwanted puppy in a shelter. I was not the nicest one available for adoption, yet you chose me. You could have taken that smooth, long lasting mechanical pencil, which could be refilled with new graphite, but you were environmentally conscience, choosing me, the biodegradable wooden pencil. To you, I was never number two.

Or maybe you were scared that the mechanical pencil would outlive you. It could be past down as a family heirloom, with every new stick of graphite prolonging its life way past yours. Even if it ran out of led and you threw it in the trash, its plastic shell would still be sitting in a landfill a thousand years from now. You and me are made of organic materials; dirt and trees. The only exception is a person created me to be with you. I’m sorry it couldn't last forever. With all the sharpening, we were bound to reach my metal end one day. It will be alright. Go ahead, and find another pencil. It’s time to let me go. You don’t have to scrape away at the millimeter of graphite left to finish this letter. 

Unless. You could leave me in my bag, and when the new pencils arrive, I can tell them our stories. I will convince them to not fear you. Then, they will not screech in protest against the paper as I did. Your pencils will dance across the page if you let me be the one to encourage them. I’ll be an old pencil, the grandparent to the new ones, who never leaves the house, our pencil bag, but is always there for them when they come home. In those moments, I will have found my purpose. I wish you luck in writing your life story, my love.