The Last Line of Defense 2

What does the fortress do when it discovers its own walls have hairline fractures?

Not collapse. 

No, that would be too generous.

Too easy

Collapse has the dignity of drama.Erosion.Erosion is quiet. Private.It happens between the smiles and the solutions.While the children are sleeping.While the meeting is still going.

So I begin to ask myself, softly, without needing to be answered, what would it mean to be seen not as a function,but as a man?

A man with doubts that don’t need correcting.With grief that doesn’t need comparison.A man who, for once, doesn’t have to  apologize for the weight he carries in silence.

I do not want permission to fall.I only want the freedom to lean.

I do not seek a rescuer.Only a witness.

A companion.

Someone who doesn’t need me to explainwhy I stay strong,but who sees the quiet effort it takes not to leave.

And so, I begin, just barely, to write these words.Not to be read. 

Not even to be shared.But to remind myself that I exist.Outside of the service I provide.

That I, too, am allowed to be tired.

Week.

That even the last line of defense

is a man.

And men,

even the strongest of them,

bleed where no one can see.