The Absent Father

What's it like having an absent father, they all ask.

Going to bed at night realizing he knows everything that goes on.

He knows I am living with such a hateful and neglectful woman.

But she was too much for him to deal with so he left.

He knew she would hurt me but she had already hurt him,

that's what stuck out to him.

He stood far in the distance, watching. 

Just waiting for her to overdose or lose custody of her kids.

She hurt him and that was enough to push him away, 

As the focus wasn't on his child it was on their unhealthy relationship.

He would send money in the mail to meet what society calls a child's basic needs.

But what he didn't meet were my emotional needs.

The broken part of me, he missed out on that because he stayed away.

Because my mother hurt my father he left and let her hurt me.

That is what it's like to have an absent father.