Structural Support

The new paint is a lie called Eggshell.

It fills the pores of the brick, smoothing out

the history of a building that saw me

standing there at 3 AM, waiting for a light.

But my knuckles find the dip in the plaster,

a shallow crater where the mortar gave up.

I used to fit my shoulder into that notch

while the cold seeped through my thin coat.

It’s gritty under the thumb, calcified and hard.

They tried to roll away the evidence of me,

but the wall remembers the weight of a person

who had nowhere else to put their gravity.