The Frame Underneath

The drywall came down in sections.

Behind it: the frame.

Orderly. Pale wood grain.

Nails in neat rows.

The building's skeleton exposed.

This is what holds us up—

not the finished surface,

not the paint or the pretense,

but this: raw plywood,

the thing nobody's supposed to see.

I stood in the hallway

watching the workers peel it back,

and I realized I didn't know

what was holding anything up.

Not the building.

Not myself.

Just this: wood and nails

and the spaces between them.

The gaps where the light comes through.

The places where nothing is promised.

I put my hand on the exposed beam.

It was colder than I expected.

Solid. Ordinary. Sufficient.

And that was somehow the worst part—

that something so simple,

so unremarkable,

was all that stood between

us and the collapse.