Pen
(Free-Verse Persona)

All my life I’m being used.
I’m being used every day and night by everyone, even you.
You use me to write your stories and poems.
You take off my cap, click my butt, or twist my body to expose my tip.
And then you force me against the white flimsy surface and scrape me against it.
And all for what?
To make your scribbles that somehow every one of your kind seems to love.

And while you take the fame and the riches they throw at you for the scribbles you forced me to
make.

Where am I?
I’m outside in the cold metal prison that you threw me in.
Surrounded by my brothers and sisters, whom you used as well, then locked away when their
blood ran too thin for you to use.
Or in some cases, stopped flowing all together...

So as you sit in your house, that is now twice as big thanks to OUR work.
Your house that seems warm and cozy, unlike ours that cold and cramped.
Remember you wouldn’t have gotten there without us.
You wouldn’t have gotten our “ink” without ripping off our heads, manipulating our bodies, and
crushing our tailbones.

So next time you wanna make more of your poems and stories, use pencils.
Fuck pencils!

​Derrick Braden