Before you glue me down

I'm the shade of a murky russet mud puddle.

I have sharp edges that have been weathered down to curves, and a rough exterior that gets more jagged the longer I survive.

I've cracked repeatedly from all the times I've been thrown or stepped on, chipped from the ways I've been tossed and piled, but I haven't been broken. 

I'm still one sloppy slab of clay and shale.

But why do you insist on stacking me with all the others? Can't you see I'm more than that?

I don't want to be cemented to this wall, stuck in this crevice where I am weighed down and applied pressure from all angles, forever sentenced to a state of structure and immobility.

Please, dear builder- before you slather me in paste and make this spot my permanent residence, consider what I want.

I want to weigh down your paper as you sketch the Colosseum. I want you to take me everywhere and use me to support your growing supply of books and journals. I want you to take me camping and let me border your fire pit, or pin down the edges of your tent. I want to be tucked under your tire as you park your car on Filbert street.  I want your umbrella to lean on me while you build sandcastles and catch crabs on the coast of Australia. I want to secure your fishing rod while you bask along the San Francisco boardwalk.

I want you to paint me when you're happy and break me when your angry. I want you to piece me back together.

And when you're finally through with me, I want you to scream and hurl me into the pacific, where I'll discover the bottom of the ocean and rest along the sand as the saltwater digs through my cracks and breaks me down into sediments, or wash up on the shore hundreds of years from now as a remnant of a long lost world.

Please, don't imprison me here. Because I have more purpose out there than I ever will here.