Reasons you would make a great brick.

If brick had a human face, it would look like yours...

• I could tell you my whole life story and you would stand there wearing the same face as when you came in.
• You stare at the same spot for a long time, just noticing. You tell me that when you draw, you look at the detail. Bricks see detail.
• You've never been an A+ swimmer. 
• I never forgot when you punched Brian in the fourth grade. Everyone said he deserved it, but I never quite understood. I did see the black eye the following Friday.
• You're real quiet. Not in a bad way. You think too hard about what you say before you say it, like your words are limited. 
• You're a city boy. Your footsteps add to the history, your heart beating the time. You belong. You may not be noticeable, but it's how you walk like a Paris local that made me fall for you in the first place.
• You're reliable. You say you're there for me, and you don't even move a step.
• You build people up. 
• You're concrete, something real to focus on. You told me once you don't believe in the abstract or in idealism. I don't think you believe in a lot of "isms." You believe in the here and now.
• You're unique. No one has your same pockmarked cheek, the same scar on your arm from when you were a kid. But sometimes, you try to bury the scars under your layers of t shirts and hoodies. Even the past is offended by the fact you're always hiding her away.
• People pick at you and pick at you and call you a "faggot," but you're still standing. You'll last centuries, but even those comments leave their dents.
• You always looked strong underneath those baggy clothes.
• You were her starting point. Her first friend. And bricks start up from ground zero.

Try, try, try again.

My fingernails are biting the palm of my hand. The skin breaks. Blood. 

Blood stains the bricks.

The bricks can't take it anymore. The bricks watch the beggars with their hands outstretched for spare change. Bricks see the cutters, carefully pulling their shirt sleeves down, concealing the way they slowly tattoo their bodies. Bricks see those starving themselves with something to prove. Bricks see the little kids who know Daddy is not coming back. Bricks see the hopeless, the desperate swearing to end their lives when they get home. 

Bricks break eventually.

And the mayor turns his attention to the government building on the verge of collapse. Has it taken down.. Rebuilt with new bricks.

Because that is always the answer.