I left you
standing on the hill.
Not in anger,
not with hate—
but with the quiet ache
of knowing I could not stay.

I told you
it would never be my home.
Not because it lacked beauty,
but because it lacked foundation.
Still, you asked me to stay,
to shield you from the wind.

You wanted a protector,
a wall against the storm,
but I am not the wind’s master.
I am not the mountain.
I cannot hold back
what was always coming.

I watched as your hill
began to erode—
not from neglect,
but from the nature
of what it was made of.

I tried to build it up,
to shape it into safety,
to sculpt from sand
a fortress strong enough
to hold us both.

But you can’t build forever
on something that washes away.
And love,
as much as it longs to stay,
needs something solid
beneath its feet.

So I left you
standing on the hill,
not because I stopped caring—
but because I finally saw
I was sinking too.