I am a paper girl.

I apologize too quickly,
sending rushed sorries as
the response to imagined offenses,
as if to cancel out my existence.

I am white and pale and blank
as an unstained sheet of paper--
pure only in the most superficial manner.

My coloring marks a lack of creativity,
a "promising future,"
devoid even of the virtue
found in failed attempts.

I am flat and two-dimensional,
my surface marred
only by the unwanted sensation
of crackling loneliness.