I didn’t just stand beside you.
I built the ground you stood on.

Piece by piece
I helped shape the life you live in.
The work, the stability,
the parts that look solid from the outside.

You stood in it
like it had always been there.
Like it grew that way on its own.

I carried things forward
with belief, with effort,
with years of showing up
when things needed to be done.

And you never stopped
to look back
and see the hands
that built the road.

Not once did you turn around
and lift me
the way I lifted you.

Not once did you stop
to build anything
that held me up.

Instead you walked forward in it
like it was all yours.

Like the life you’re standing in
is something
you built alone.

And the hardest realization
is that I kept believing
one day you would.

But you never did.