Smooth, flat, beaming white light bouncing off of its blank surface. No creases, no rips, no wrinkles. Perfect. The perfect, brand new, piece of paper. The underappreciated, unimportant, piece of paper.

The first insult. The first mean comment. The first crease. To tamper with the perfect, untattered surface of the beaming white paper. Asking for forgiveness, trying to remove the crease. But the crease cannot be fully removed. The insult cannot be completely forgiven.

The second crease being made. The teasing being taken too far. The unremovable crease. 2 creases now. 2 imperfections in the formerly perfect, formally flawless piece of paper. How far will it go? How many creases until it goes too far?

Tempers flare. A useless argument builds into an all-out brawl. This time it is much more than a crease. The paper has begun to rip. No chance to repair it. It might already be too late. Has it gone too far? Has the disrespect, the underappreciation, pushed it too far?

Starting over. A new piece of paper. Smooth, flat, beaming white light bouncing off of its blank surface. No creases, no rips, no wrinkles. But still remembering the old paper, will you make the same mistake? No, no you will not. Or will you? Or will you do it again? Will you continue the cycle, week by week, month by month, year by year?

Will you let the creased, tattered, imperfect papers continue to pile up? Push it till there are just too many imperfections in the formally perfect pieces of paper. Until you run out of chances. Until there is no more paper to ruin. Once it is finally over.

Once it is already too late, too late to have finally gained an appreciation for the piece of paper that was once perfect, and finally stopped taking for granted, what you once had.