Fragile

I knew we would break one sweet afternoon as I sat by your bed and watched you fold your shirt, and I was smiling, but I can’t say why something in me was crying that the someone who would someday do these things for you would not be me.

But knowing does not happen all at once. It is fragmented premonition of blinding light from a shard that pierces so deeply, we inevitably look away. Until we can’t.

I had known once before—nay, many times before—like when life filled up with things beyond my knowledge, but you’d known me longer than that.
You were building a house, and I was never home.
And I never liked being surprised by things not picked for us.

I knew we would break in the beginning too. When I finally understood that phrase from that book, “a part of me is made of glass…”
Because sometimes it takes someone to hold you carelessly before the fear of shattering reminds you that there is something in you that is fragile.
There is something that needs to be saved.

From now on, I want to be held like glass, because I do shatter.
I want you to love yourself, so I’m not just your mirror.
I want your insecurities left outside my door; I am not a personal soother.

I know all these things.
Still, I gamble with my self sometimes.
I hold an image too long, and too tight.
I open the door too wide…

I need to be alone for a while.