I was the whole world.
Not a partner — a foundation.
The thing she stood on
while she learned to stand.
Every crisis, every slip,
every crawl back from the edge of herself —
I was the hand she reached for.
I was her compass, her floor, her voice
when she couldn't find her own.
But a compass has no one to point it home.
A floor has no one to stand on.
Somewhere in all of it
I had stopped taking up space.