What Didn't Stand

I built it myself.

Watched a video on my phone,

gathered the materials,

told myself I could do this,

that I wasn't going to be the kind of person

who needed someone else to hang a shelf.

It looked fine for the first month.

The books sat on it.

The weight held.

I didn't look too closely at the angle.

But over time—maybe it was the house settling,

maybe it was that I hadn't used a level,

maybe it was just inevitable—

the gap appeared.

Between the shelf and the wall.

Growing wider.

A millimeter at a time, then a quarter inch.

Now it's obvious.

Books sit unevenly on it.

The ones on the left side slide slightly downward.

I keep pushing them back up,

knowing it won't matter,

knowing the shelf is slowly, imperceptibly,

failing.

Someone is coming over tomorrow.

I've been thinking about it all week,

this shelf, this proof of my failure,

this thing I built that couldn't hold its own weight.

I could take it down.

Take it apart, unmake it,

remove the evidence before anyone else sees it,

before anyone asks me about it,

before I have to say: I built this. I did this.

And it didn't work.

But I haven't taken it down yet.

I've just been staring at it,

at the gap,

at the slowly failing support,

at the moment before the collapse,

and I'm waiting

to see what happens

when someone else notices

that I'm not as capable

as I pretend to be.