Not Enough (Poetry)

It could have been so different
so very very different
you could have been in awe to learn
I was carrying your child
overcome with that momentous news
that you had however unwittingly
fathered another human being
it should have humbled you
enriched you with the knowledge
that your genes had followed Nature’s plan
and made you a complete fulfilled
and biologically successful
better man

Instead you bolted like a startled deer
heels not seen for dust
immune to reason’s pleading
and my obvious plight
absented yourself — went off into
a cold cold tunnel carved from night
and never looked back
I wrote you didn’t answer
I couldn’t get you on the phone so
I did all the parenting alone

What would you have me tell her?
Your daughter once old enough to ask
‘Where is my Daddy?’

I told her half the truth —
you didn’t love me so you left
it wasn’t her fault — never hers
I never wanted her to hate you or to blame
your coward nature — yet hers proved the same
she left eighteen years later
cast me off ... It follows then
that all I was to both of you
was simply not enough