Cardboard

I am a piece of cardboard, brown, hard, and square. I sit in the house, dark and cold, until they need me out there. What's this? I'm being grabbed! Perhaps I'll finally be used! Maybe I'll be made into a poster that will a young child amuse! Then I remember what I am: I'm a single side of a box. I remembering the laughing sneers, and the harsh, cruel talk. The pretty Postcards once cried, "How much fairer we are than thee! You aren't anymore than the bark of a rotten and dead tree!" The powerful Envelopes, who bear their messages with might, present a striking figure... one that is prone to fight. They boasted of their strength, saying to me, "What are you!? You bend and brake at the weakest wind! Now stand aside; we are coming through!" And I let them push me... After all... it's true. To what can I amount? Nothing... So I don't dare. I'm just a piece of cardboard, brown, hard, and square. But here I go now, it doesn't matter what for. I don't even notice or care that I'm in the fabric store. They wrap a piece of cloth around me and send me to a school. All the while, I despair on, saying, "I am but a fool." A boy put me on his head, though I, myself, abhor. I was just about to fall asleep, when I saw what else he wore. A robe of great commencement, a gold ribbon around his chest. I suddenly realized what I was, and what honor I truly possessed. This is why I write... To show that you are something more. That you may learn of your own worth... That you may find your fabric store. No matter what you think you are, or what others have to say, you have a purpose in this world. You have a part to play.