Speaking to Stone

There was a time when I thought we were two trees in the same forest... roots twisted together under the soil, holding each other steady when the wind howled. I believed in that bond so fiercely I poured myself into keeping it alive. I gave you rain when your ground cracked. I leaned my branches over you when the heat threatened to burn you down. I stood there, unshaken, while you hid yourself in shadows you claimed you couldn’t control.

But somewhere along the seasons, you stopped reaching for me. Your branches grew inward, wrapped around yourself, choking your own growth. Moss climbed over your words until I could no longer tell what was truth and what was just decay. And now, when I call out, all I hear is the echo of my own voice bouncing off your distance.

You tell me it’s not about me. You repeat it like a prayer ... “It’s not you.” But something in me makes you turn away, again and again. Maybe it’s that I stay rooted in light, refusing to plant myself in the soil of bitterness. Maybe it’s because I won’t let age or depression be my only language. Or maybe it’s because you don’t know how to stand next to someone who refuses to rot alongside you.

There was a time I wanted your companionship so badly I ignored the pattern...  the failed promises that fell like rotten fruit, heavy and foul before they ever reached my hands. You could have picked them up, learned from them, composted the mess into something alive. But you didn’t. You left them there to fester.

Accountability is a rare flower, but you never bothered to plant it. You speak of growth, but I’ve seen you sitting in the same patch of dirt for years, calling it comfort when it’s really surrender. You are not growing, and that terrifies me more than the thought of walking away. Friendship is a trail worn by two sets of feet, not a road I have to clear alone with bloodied hands and blistered heels.

I am not your mother. I will not carry you over the stones while you watch from the safety of your shade. For nearly two years, my words and actions have matched. Yours have been wind with no weather... noise without change. Do you think I cannot live without you? Watch me. I will. It will hurt, but I will thrive. I have done it before.

The distance between us is not a storm that rolled in by accident... it is your choice. Every day you choose not to step forward, you stack another stone between us. And if you think you can stand behind that wall forever and still call me your friend, you are wrong. If there is still soil for this friendship to grow, it is your turn to plant, water, and tend.

Because I am done feeding roots that refuse to reach back. I am done speaking to the stone and expecting it to answer. Soon the forest will close around me, and you will be left standing in your clearing with nothing but the hollow sound of your own regrets. And by then, it won’t matter what you decide. The time to do or say something is now, because once I am gone, you will know exactly why, and there will be no coming back.