Her, For Whom I Would Build A Home

There are women a man may notice from across the room.

…And then there are women for whom he would build the room.

Not because she would demand a palace; indeed, she was the one who dreamed of a cottage.

…A humble abode behind pine trees, perhaps, where the road would narrow before the gate. A place with a garden to grow a patch of vegetables and some flowers for enjoyment’s sake.

Perhaps this is because she spent so long proving herself to others, to whom she had become conditioned to apologize. Life had taught her that whatever softness she retained deep within would have to be stifled out or shielded.

That she would need to become sharper. Harder. Tougher.

She was accustomed to walking into rooms in which no one intended to make space for her—she became so excellent that they were forced to.

Yet, upon walking through the front door, may she, with a click of the door’s lock, lean her back against the corridor’s wall to hang the day’s weight from her shoulders.

From where she may feel the warmth of the hearth’s fire, casting a ballet of shadows upon her face, a face more exhausted than her years—under which she may loosen her armored smile…

…just a little.

This poem is for the kind of woman for whom I have built a home: