I Wanted You

I wanted you before I knew the shape your little smile would do. I dreamed of tiny hands in mine, of watching you grow over time. But life became a harder place, and distance slowly took your face. There were battles you could never see, and things that broke the best of me. I told myself I had no choice, too tired to fight, too hurt for voice. Yet years have passed, and now I know there may have been another road. I should have stayed, I should have tried, should have fought harder by your side. For every year I was not there became another weight to bear. There are things you may never know, the hidden hurt from long ago. The calls, the words, the doors that closed, the parts of us that no one knows. But none of that can change what stays, through all the lost and empty days. You were my daughter from the start, and never left this aching heart. I wonder who you are today, what makes you laugh, what fills your days. What songs you love, what dreams you chase, what life has written on your face. And sometimes when the night is still, I think of all the years gone by. The moments lost, the things we missed, the thousand times I wondered why. I cannot change what came before, or walk again through that old door. But if one truth could reach you now, I hope somehow you would know how. I wanted you. I loved you then. I love you still. And somewhere deep inside of me there is a father you may never see, still wishing he had found a way to hold his little girl and stay.