Jealousy at Midnight (The Father's Perspective)

While numbing what I couldn’t face,
bringing out the worst in me,
anger, sharp words,
splinters of a man I barely knew,
I watched as it taught you to fear me,
but it didn’t have to be that way.
I chose to let the weight turn me cold.

Then he came into your life.

Laughing, light in his voice,
he didn’t disappear into himself like I did;
he found you.
On that bench at midnight,
you cried in his arms,
arms that should’ve been mine,
but I chose not to hold you.

He gave you the words
I never took the time to find.
Even while I was a call away,
you still turned to him.
Even while his world was spinning,
his kindness healed in seconds
what I broke for years.

I watched you,
arm in arm, sinking into the sand,
the ocean’s hum between your souls.
He promised to be there for you,
promised to find you, hear you, love you,
while I stayed in the distance,
rightfully fading.

He’s everything I refused to be,
only he’s your age,
not your father.
He held the reflection of my failure,
because he was everything I wanted to be as your father,
loving, caring, there for you,
but he was just your best friend.