A Brick’s Letter to the First Mr. Right

I heard your lives through the pores of my red skin.

When she lost that white virtue I was there.

I saw through the cracks in my mortar

Her face-splitting smile as she replayed the memory of your molded tanned bodies

I felt her joy,

When you said those those three little words that first time.

I smelled the roses you left on her bedside on your fifth anniversary,

And your thumbprint molded in clay.

I was in awe of you both looking at DNA; remembering

When your five-year-old brains realized that your fingerprints looked the same.

I admired the connection you still shared twelve years later.

Her prayer was to press her to thumb to yours every night.

I tasted when sweet air morphed into salty confusion

When her phone didn’t ring anymore at that special hour.

I received the punches her fragile hands delivered

When she received that text.

I saw the moment her soul left her body,

When she cried aloud “It’s not enough anymore.”

I cried when I saw her insecurities radiate through her,

All that toxic energy.

I wonder as the paint chips off my frame

When she moved on.

I worry that she never did.

Because I saw her care for you with every cell in her vessel for eighteen years.

I crackle and crumble;

When she doesn’t visit home for twenty two years.

I have been here all along.

She took the mirror that hung on the nail that bore through me

But I was left to rot with the rest of the house, along with all of your memories.

Mes G