Fragile

“But tomorrow, dawn will come the way I picture her,
barefoot and disheveled, standing outside my window
in one of the fragile cotton dresses of the poor.
She will look in at me with her thin arms extended,
offering a handful of birdsong and a small cup of light.”

"Can a man and a woman that disagree over important things without freedom to speak of them have a chance at happiness?"

"Yes, but not if that is something that one of you sees as a freedom you cannot live without. You .. You have to decide if that freedom is something that submits to your love of the other person or if it is something that requires its freedom .. this ability to speak .. to argue .. to disagree with him. Only you can tell yourself how important that freedom is to you."

"I cannot lose who I am .. the important parts of me. I will not change what I believe in even in the name of love." That was something he could respect. That was important to me .. respect. The giving and the earning. I could agree to disagree but not to give up my ability to have an opinion.

"I want nothing more than your happiness, Mezoo, no that is not true, I want something even more .. for you to never lose you .. who you are. I like Mezoo. I like who she is and selfishly .. I do not want to lose her." I promised that I would do all that I could to keep that promise and in the same breath I asked .. If I do lose her .. will you help me find her? The answer came with a huge grin, "Without a doubt."

His happiness meant the world to me too. But I would not ask the same of him and he wanted to know why. Why would I not exact such a promise from him as well .. not to lose himself .. not to change. It was easy to answer. That was a decision he had to make for himself whether he would wish to change or to remain stead fast in who and what he was right that moment. I left him that option .. that choice to make on his own. It was the same courtesy he had offered moments before.

I had told him I wanted and needed .. to be the woman I am .. to change for no one. Those were my words. My beliefs. He was simply asking me to keep that promise .. as much to myself as it was to him. I did tell him as an after thought to go ahead ... change ... I would find a way to love him still and probably stumble all over everything he held precious in doing so. He laughed.

That conversation was my solid ground in the best of times and the worst of them.

I held onto it as I spoke with Ayguili later.

"You are still angry with me."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement as if it were a fact. I started to give the details of all that went behind my thoughts but knew that the words would fall on deaf ears. I was tired. I was weak. I was worried. My hesitation flared something inside the man. If I did not want to talk then he could take me to Grandmother's. I probably should have simply let him.

"No ... not angry." All the tension that rose in him instantly caught me off guard. Made me feel defensive, fragile. It was to be a rehash of an argument for the sake of a new one. With the last of the breath I could summon from the ravages of my lungs I told him that he is a good Ubar. He was what this tribe needed. His efforts have made vast changes for good among our people. I had no answers .. I loved him. He loved me and I didn't know what else he nor I could add.

"I want nothing more than for you to be happy Mezoo."

And even in that moment I needed him to reach out and take my hand and tell me that everything was going to be alright. That there was hope not only for our Tribe, for our clans and for our families but for ... us. "I want nothing more than for you to be happy Mezoo." He told me he was setting me free. He would see me instilled in a place where I had the love and support of family. I leaned forward cupping his cheeks in my hands and kissed him with the lingering of my breath with his as I told him I would always love him. Great sky I loved him .. and it wasn't enough.

It was over and we both knew it.

I was going to come out the bad guy in all of it because I was a woman that would not love ... too much, because I was not going to give away who I am and what I believe even in the name of love.

I couldn't just be fragile.

I want to be but I have to be strong. I need to be and I can't be but in so many ways ... I am. Strong and Fragile. I'm a woman with all the ups and downs and rights and wrongs there is to go with that.

I hate feeling that I could be .. fragile.