text: Everyone spends their lives building their pillar. They’re all a little different, from height to material to sturdiness. Most people can’t build them on their own. They need parents, friends, loved ones, someone who can pick up the slack when they’re tired. I don’t know when it happened, but you stole my pillar. It was your smile, your hugs, your knowledge that you were what I wanted so desperately. You took my pillar away from me and added it to your own, and I was foolish enough to help. I used what materials I could find, and it was only when I had no more to give that I wanted to join you, to see the heights you took for granted while you insisted that it was all the same. It took time. You cheered me on as I climbed, playing the supportive role I needed. Did you think I would never make it? That I would fall, and resign myself to building you higher? When I finally reached you, I didn’t have the strength to pull myself up. I was tired, something you probably counted on, and you nodded as I held out my hand for you to take, to pull me up. With that same smile, your foot stomped down on my fingers, grinding them beneath the pedestal until I could take it no more. I fell, and you didn’t seem worried that I would die, just that I continued to worship you if I survived. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact, and I was surprised by the warm arms holding onto me, cradling me close. She caught me. I had never asked where the building materials came from, or how the platform was built when I was too tired to work on it, but it was always her. I had never asked for her help, and so I never noticed that it was given all too willingly. She was always quietly by my side, supporting me and holding me up when I was too tired to stand on my own. It’s just a shame that you had to show me who you really are for me to see her. My pedestal is small, but it gets larger every day. Sometimes I still have flashbacks of my plummet, and I’m afraid to fall back to Earth, afraid to get too high lest my pillar collapse, but she’s next to me. She lets me know that I can build my tower, that I don’t have to fear the sway of it, or what should happen if I fail. And you? I know that your stolen platform is growing even without me there, but I can see it in the distance. It crumbles and cracks without the right blocks so strategically placed, and your pleas for me to come back, that I owe you, that you are faultless, that you forgive me, are lost in the space between us. I don’t need you anymore. I have her, and I’m all the luckier for it.