'Breaking Ground' by M. Lucky

I.

You are ten years old, dragging your other half out of bed. Neither of you wanted this—note that both of you will never want it again. She leaves handprints across your face that will fade faster than the eulogy, but she will resent you for what feels like forever, and you inherently know that this is just the byproduct of pretending to be someone else for the rest of your existence. She does love you, even though it will take just enough bloodshed to convince each other of it. So, you will spend the next twenty years stepping into the red, wishing you were never born. But who is going to finish building god?

II.

Today is Thursday and you are looking at the blueprint upside down. You will always be peering across a table like this so you learn to tilt your head. This blueprint is unfinished, and you know it is because the architect is six feet under, and the next time you come here it will be to kick rocks. You are fixed to this mound of dirt, realizing that he really just left you here to finish the job. Brown will be your favorite color forever.

III.

You are just a little older and, now knowing better, linger in the doorway of her bedroom. Away from the stinging palm you hear a faraway voice that sounds on the verge of tears. You know this sound is eerily similar to the way you speak all the time—wavering and collapsing in your own ear after each sentence. But she only sounds like this sometimes, so it scares you when you can’t get her out of bed anymore.

IV.

It’s another Thursday, and this time you are completely upside down, while those you love shake the coins out of your pockets. Of course you let them put you on the hook. It’s the only thing you have left after you gave up your youth and every innocence you once held in your still-foolish heart. You know it made them spoiled, but at one time it was everything you asked for, since the view was familiar, and you were comforted enough to watch the blood let onto the killing floor. You didn’t build god, you pieced together a perfect monster who won’t even speak to you.

V.

Suddenly, you are the age that you are now—any year you choose—and now you smell awful. You are eternally breaking ground on a project that you’re certain will remain unfinished, considering today is still Thursday and you can’t hold a shovel anymore. Everything you actually wanted in the deep selfishness of your private being makes you ashamed because, no, you didn’t understand the instructions and, no, you can’t ask for clarification, and, no, you are absolutely not getting it back.

VI.

You are alone, trying your best to love yourself, and somehow, it makes you evil. The die has been cast and you are the half who hates herself because you hate not being you. Due to this, you’re convinced that no one can look at you. Facedown on the ground now, you are furiously digging with your claws into the next mound of dirt, then the next, over and over, if only to be covered in what you do love.