How to Build an Unstable Home

20 minutes. Go:

First, you must break the foundation: Use the vernacular of sticks and stones to crack the parts of us we promise to protect. Remove the hair, the ribs, the shattered spine. Call it a name that's a little less alive. Like Karma. This is what you get for making a home out of humans. 

Second, do not let sensibilities stop you. Stay numb. Build above the broken bits. When hurricane season hits, expect to feel the teeter of survival's see-saw. Remember that there is only one of you and, if no one is on the other side, you will have to propel yourself upward. You kneecaps are prone to ignoring gravity. Keep building. 

Then, fill a second floor with extra pinkies, from promises that twisted away. Look down. Notice how frail fingers can become when they aren't laced in anyone else's. When they have been pulled apart. When they are nothing but bone.

Four, fill the walls with other people's hate. Stuff it into eardrums, like letters. No return address. Mail it to yourself that way it feels special when you cry. Salt water giving life with the very breath exhaled to take life way. 

The calluses on your hands do not reflect pain but the moments that attempted to rebuild. 

It is not your fault if some things are made to be broken.