Fourth Edit: Hometown

[Achebe]

I
I had to leave while you were asleep.
I'm sorry it had to be that way. ......

The moonlight was translucent solace,
the dark sky didn't judge
as I pretended to decide on
a decision I'd already made.  ......too much tell. It might make more sense to show what you'll miss - maybe the park you played in, the abandoned building where you first made out, the street where your girlfriend used to live before her parents moved out of town when you both were 13, the place where you won your first fist fight, etc...

I remembered walking home that last day,
your pavement hot and cracked
like a young lover's promise.  .....the metaphor of the town as a lover is overcooked. It does not convince because it's all tell.

II
After almost a year, I returned. .....this makes it slightly ridiculous. All this fuss about moving out for a year? Half a century, even a couple of decades, I can understand.

You seemed more beautiful than before,
and this made me hate you worse.