The garden was once a riot of color, but the wild things did not know when to stop.

The ivy, sweet and green, began to throttle the roses. The weeds, unbidden, drank the well dry. And you, the gardener, stood in the center with tired hands, wondering why your sanctuary felt like a cage.

You loved the ivy. You cherished the wild. But love without a limit is a slow kind of drowning.

So, you picked up the stones.

One by one, you laid them down—not to shut the world out, but to give the roses room to breathe. You drew a line in the dirt and told the wind: “This far, and no further.”

It felt cold at first, the weight of the rock in your palm. You feared the garden would go quiet, that the wild would resent the wall. But instead, a strange thing happened.

The roses grew tall. The ivy found a trellis to climb instead of a neck to wring. And for the first time in years, you found a patch of grass where you could sit without being swallowed whole.