Tear Me Down, Build Me Back Up

This a (super) short experimental piece, perhaps a prose poem, inspired by: 'sticks and stones will break my bones' as suggested by Ben Werdmüller for the 'IndieWeb Fiction Carnival.'

As I publish (and write) this, there's still three days left for May if you want to participate the month it's hosted! And even if you don't make it in time, I'm sure the host shall be amenable to adding your post to his roundup. Or, if you'd like to host a month or participate next time, join us on the Wiki.

'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.'

What is this phrasing? A proverb? An aphorism?

Where does it come from? Why does it exist, or get repeated so often? Used as an empty reassurance to the kid with scabbed spines, or as a last line of defense in the isolated asteroid mining rig.

Except, hack off the first half, and change 'may' to 'will' and you have something different. Something almost like truth sent from wherever it comes from.

They repeated the usual version of this phrase, turned on him in the second person, until it became so pervasive they might've well have tattooed it on the insides of his eyelids.

The only surviving one of the experiment that produced him? Expected to sacrifice everything for a world where half the occupants thought he shouldn't exist? Rebuilt in a form he doesn't recognize.

Brush it off. Let it go. Live, and let live.

Noble aspirations and heartfelt advice, to have, but can you blame him, for when, at last, he snapped? Perhaps the universe should be grateful.

Because, if he'd done so even six months earlier…an entire planet might not have survived.

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