love architect
i’m really good at legos. like REALLY good. i delve into brick building after my ex and i ended. i
needed something to to fix. something to hold together, even if it was artificial and only for
decoration. i’m also really good at building furniture. that became known to me when i didn’t
want to wait for or depend on my ex to build something for me. you see how habits form from
shitty places? yeah that’s how i realized these habits of building legos and building furniture was
born out of my need to fix things— my need to hold things together— because after all, i am
really great with my hands.
if you build a lego set right the first time, it’ll stay put unless you break it. unless outside factors
damage it because on it’s own, the structural integrity is in tact; quite the same for furniture.
based on the title, you’re probably wondering, “what the hell do furniture and legos have to do
with love and architecture?” alot. because every effect has a cause.
in my past relationships— i had a knack of picking broken men, broken people, broken hearts,
my own brokenness and wanting to force those puzzle pieces to fit. wanting to clean up a mess
i didn’t make, mend a heart i didn’t break, heal a hurt that i didn’t ache, and be a bridge for gaps
that i damn sure didn’t create.
my first true lover wanted to fix me. i was broken and so was he. or was i? i was 14 with trauma
and wounds. i needed therapy, not glue.
the one after that was a doozy. he really fucked and screwed me. for three years, i waited, i
built, i glued, i cried, i begged to be seen, to be heard— to be wanted and yet i was always
secondhand, never first pick.
and the cycle continued. i fixed and built— but never reaped the benefits of my hard work. i
made masterpieces for other women, other lovers. i was the lowly architect always sought after
but never kept long enough to see the fruits of my labor.
underpaid. undervalued. overfucked. burnt out. worn out. sexed out. cranes in the sky x solange
on loop.
my first marriage taught me at a tender twenty to stop looking for people to build. to stop looking
for people to fix. did i want to fix them for my lack? or were they looking for a home in me?
lego bricks showed me that even if pieces seemingly fit together, it can still be built wrong. it can
still be broken, breakable.
hearts are not mine to fix up.
their brokenness is not my burden to bear, not my disaster to repair.