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paper folding
It is impossible to fold a standard sized piece of paper in half more than seven times.
You tested this theory in 4th grade
After coming back from recess
Seeing the A4 stack of paper on each desk
The teacher told us that if we could fold the paper in half
More than 7 times, she wouldn't assign homework.
The first four folds were effortless
Though after the fifth fold, like any child,
The confidence boosted and you thought you had it
In the bag.
As the material thickened and our young, scrawny fingers
Struggling to manipulate it.
Hands that had not existed a decade prior
Frustrated in their inability to conquer
Science.
Minutes increasing, compressing resulted into angry sighs in 32 clumps
Of wrinkled fist sized parchment.
Everytime we did not succeed
We would unfold our paper and
Try again and again
Increasing only our anger and decreasing our
Confidence.
This memory resurfaced as I was sitting
on my satin bed sheets that felt like a slippery slide with
A pillow wedge between my arms and my chest,
I was feeling my body folding up.
In half then half and half again, until I was the smallest I had ever been.
Bent just until I was my most stubborn and static self.
It was only till this moment that I realized that my emotions are only so large.
Like all of this, all of me could fit into a poem of a 9 year old.
I remember being here before.
At the bottom of this cycle, at the end of this exhale.
I remember the overwhelming defeat at my desk.
Clutching the idea of an impossible expectation and
I Wish I could do more of it.
I remember restarting.
Retracting my steps and going back to square 1.
So far, my teenage years have been like this experience.
I collapse into something dense and heavy but then
Unravel and open up again.
I've spent my entire life recovering from these condensed episodes of emotions
in something so simple as
3.
2.
1.
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