Life of a Pencil

I dreamed
I was a pencil,
Held in someone's hand,
gliding across a page,
giving everything I am
to let their words be recorded,
destroying myself in my work,
as my very core is scraped away,
existing only for the writer
as they sharpen me over and over,
shorter and shorter,
until I am nothing more
than a couple inches of wood,
a bit of graphite,
an eraser stub rubbed away to uselessness
as it's level with the metal ring around it.
But I live on in the essays, the homework,
the quizzes and tests and outlines,
the sketches, the drawings, the poems and prose,
the love-letters and grocery lists and who else knows;
So precious are words,
the words that you chose.