I sat in the stairwell one evening trying to tear my phone in half.

Weighty and compact, its front and back glass panels did not bend. Its rounded metal edges brushed off the force of my twisting wrists, nullifying all my effort.

I continued to twist, wanting to see if I could get to the inside of something (anything), but the outside would not give.

I imagined that the evidence of my force was inside the phone: computer parts mangled by torsion.

Corollary: I imagined my body hitting the water, insides disarrayed, like a dumpling.

My body hitting the water, a distant dream.