A Piece of Paper

Something that binds two people together. Long after the bonds are broken.
Something that registers a relationship between a father and child.
Something that proves that I am my mother's daughter.

A piece of paper.

It had come to rule my life in a way I never imagined.
It's the paper that dictates that I am bound to someone in marriage. Even if that marriage had dissolved before it had even begun .
It's the paper that I need to combat with everytime my daughter is involved.
It's this paper I have to run around for to prove that my mother did indeed give birth to me 39 years ago, to get out some of her small savings from a bank.

How can a paper dictate what we want out of life?
How can a paper constrain our freedom and clip our wings?
How can a paper stare at my face everytime I decide to move ahead in life?

A paper can be shredded to bits in a split second.
That's what it is worth.
But we have ourselves decided to give it the high ground it commands.
By setting our rules, our laws, our moral standards.

So what if it is at times more misused than used?

The paper proves that we have no trust left in each other.
That others run our lives, not us.
That all problems have the same cause and need the same solution.
That we have to spend all our energies trying to fight something that we don't believe in.

And that, whatever we do, this piece of paper will impact us long after it is shredded and gone.