I just wanted a Father

I just wanted a father. Not a ghost that wore a man’s face. Not a stranger with my eyes. Not the silence that sat at the dinner table like it paid rent. I wanted a father. A real one. The kind who shows up when the world feels too heavy, who says, “you’re doing great, baby girl,” and actually means it. I wanted someone who didn’t just give me a last name but gave me something to believe in. Someone who’d say, “I’m proud of you,” and not because I earned it, but because I existed. You see, I learned to build myself out of the things you forgot to be. Out of your absence, out of your silence, out of the nights I cried to a ceiling that never answered back. They say a father is a daughter’s first love. But what happens when that love never shows up? When the first man to break your heart shares your DNA? You taught me something, though. You taught me how to crave the impossible. How to call pain home. How to look for you in every guy who swears he’s different until he isn’t. I just wanted a father. One who’d teach me how to throw a ball how to ride a bike how to trust, how to not flinch when someone raises their voice. But instead, I learned how to live without a dad