Why Would Any Man Want Her Any Other Way?

"Every man wants a woman with fire, right up until she burns!"

He said he wanted a strong woman. Confident. Ambitious. Someone who knows who she is and where she's going.

Then she showed up.

She had opinions that didn't bend to his. Places to be that had nothing to do with him. She walked into rooms, and the rooms noticed.

And something in him tightened.

He started calling it "a lot."

This piece is about what tightening means. Where it comes from. And the woman on the other side of it, who's been making herself portable — easy to carry, light enough that nobody leaves — long enough that she's forgotten what her voice sounds like at full volume.

One is looking for a mirror. The other is practicing vanishing.

Neither of them has to stay there.