that pencil

was decisive as an arrow once
but soon I noticed
it was always a little short of sharp

but maybe
but who can say
anyway I persevered

and every scratch of the way
there was that pencil
unsharp ever
barely shy of blunt at times

anyway I persevered

now look at it
all chewed up like an argument
nobody won

Image: Chewed Pencils by Arthur Williams, published under a Creative Commons  Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) license.