Who am I? Who am I?

Says one of the peer.

And then putting together a bunch of bits

He sends out a sailor to discover.

The sailor thus embarks,

Through layers and layers of misery

There is no dropping out now

He has to go through with this journey.

He is tagged and un-tagged

Framed, he is now part of the brawl

Padded and unpadded

He is just sick of all protocol.

But he wrestles through

Hoping for the lights at the other end of the tunnel

He is just waiting for his chance

To get out through that fiber channel.

He isn't denied

And soon he finds himself at the head of the line

He feels the pulse and out he is thrown

This is his moment to shine.

He looks around, stupefied now

To see a million of himself all around

Suddenly reality hits him

He isn't as special it might sound.

Moving now at the speed of light

Churned, tumbled, switched, routed, he faces everyone’s wrath

He moves from one route to another

Hoping he correctly chooses the shortest path.

Finally he arrives, and sees the other peer

He brushes off his coat, trying to look his very best

He closes his eyes and prays

Wishing all along that he passes the check-sum test.

He now goes up the layers

De-framed, extracted as a consequence

Till finally he arrives at the pearly gates

To deliver the data in sequence.

Broken down, he just turns back the last time

Wondering if he will be able to see

But on catching the 1 bit NACK being generated

He turns around, knowing he shouldn't have used UDP.

And this my friends is the story of our packet

Who jumps from one domain to another, hoping to prove he isn't a jerk

To all of you he might just seem just like a bunch of garbage bits

But together with all the infrastructure, he is an integral part of the network.