And it was a nice yard once. A garden bed full of tulips, a lawn blanketed with small clover. A tall willow tree perfect for a child to play pretend under and make magical memories in. A cobble path winding from the door to the street. The houses on either side were just close enough that you could hear the neighborhood children laughing. Yet they are far enough that it felt like a secluded little fairy wonderland. A perfect place to settle down and raise a family.
Left to its own devices, the garden has turned brown. The small patches of crabgrass you insisted I leave be have spread all throughout the lawn. Unmaintained and uncontrolled the small patches have now grown over everything else. Each tendril of it working to suffocate the soft clover. Poking and prodding at the cobble path with ever reaching arms.
The willow tree hangs heavy with the weight of itself. Without someone there to trim it, all it can do is droop down further and further. Left alone a little longer it might have died under its own weight. So much has changed here since that day but the house... The house looks the same it did the day we bought it. The day we stood in front of it, your arm around my waist, and knew that this would be where we would raise our kids.
You deserve to be buried here my love. You deserve to wither and rot under the very same willow tree. We once imagined our future here together and I will ensure our dreams come true. I will make you a home under that willow tree. A place where you can rest soundly and watch as I raise our child.
I will rid the yard of your crabgrass. I will spare no expense in removing the evil from the very root. The blood on my hands is a necessary sacrifice for what I must do for her. Ripping up the crabgrass and replacing it with the soft sweet clover I once knew. The clover I fell in love with when I fell in love with you.
Look I love unconditional devotion love stories as much as the next person, but there's really something so deliciously raw about conditional devotion.
I have served you and I have loved you for decades, but I will not give up my principles for you. You cut out part of my heart and took it with you down that path that you insist on walking, but you walk it alone. Even when the bleeding, gaping hole you left in my chest kills me, I will not follow you.