Thought I’d tear the whole damn wall down

Thought I’d tear the whole damn wall down

just taking this off. Ten years, maybe more,

since I hammered it together,

a half-baked idea for books

in a spare room nobody used.

Cheap particle board, screws

I stripped with a borrowed drill,

thinking, this won't last a winter.

But it held.

The ghost of a heavy dictionary,

a faint, perfect circle on the paint

beneath it, for a decade.

All those words, all that weight,

and those stupid, ugly screws,

still sunk deep, still doing their job.

A small win, I guess.

The kind you don’t plan for.