Dear Paper, 

Your face may be crisp and white (or an array of other alluring colours) but your soul is drenched in the blood of your ancestors. I do not know or presume to pontificate upon why you insist upon having a perfectly healthy, vibrant tree decapitated, dismembered, ground to a sappy pulp and bleached in order to achieve your final result but here you are, facing me with your crisp whiteness, your thin blue ink lines and your fascist sizing code. Here you stand, Paper, wavering in the wind, trembling like the weak material that you are, lulling me into a false sense of security with your delicate consistency.

You really are a despicable creature, Paper.

I use you, oh yes I use you in many forms.  Your most common format, A4 is a stalwart of the modern office, the outpouring of a fax machine, the scrap upon which we scrawl. Sometimes you evolve into A3 or A2 (or the lesser known A1, rarely sighted in the wild) but you are always there, taunting me with your inanimate nature.

You may be wondering why I am so worked up, why I am spouting such nonsense at you for you are just Paper. But then, why are you wondering, if you are indeed just Paper. No! I do not believe that for an instant.

You are a trap. An insidious, welcoming trap. ‘Pick me up’, your clean slate cries out to me. ‘Stack me in piles’, you call out in chorus. ‘Make me neat’, you torment me. So I do. Time and time again, I pick you up, battered spouse that I am, and I write upon your pristine surface, highlight your lines, fold and hole-punch you to fit wherever you are meant to fit. My fingers are on your surface, my pen marks your skin and I caress you.

And that is exactly what you want.

Because just as I am finishing, just as I pick you up and slide you into your plastic sleeve or binder or envelope, that is when you strike. Your blade-like edge slices through the tender skin on my finger like a meat cleaver through a freshly bled pig.

And I bleed. I swear at you and curse the day we met. I run for antiseptic, bandages and water. I weep into my chest for having fallen for your charms yet again and I lament not being strong enough to resist. I bleed, Paper, but you do not care. My blood splatters your surface, drying from red to rust but you do not care. In fact, I think you enjoy it. I think it spurns you on. Your taste for blood awakens the demon inside you and you come at me, slicing and dicing until my fingers are tattered and raw and I cannot go on.

And while I wallow in defeat you sound your triumphant horn and call to your brethren for you have found prey. And you must feast.

But not next time, Paper. Next time, my hand will be clad in a gauntlet and your edges will not touch me. Next time, I will win.

Adrik