I will never get back that time,

Those years I wish I had,

To be present with them

I missed them so,

Now they are grown,

They don’t know who I am,

How much I love them,

Is lost to explanations of why I wasn’t there,

Present with them,

Oh, how I wish I could of been,

Stopped at every turn,

No matter how much I tried,

To change, to mold myself into a new man,

Nothing I did,

Made a difference in the end,

Now here we are,

Estranged from each other,

I love them so much,

I feel they love me,

Yet, we don’t know each other,

Working hard to build that trust,

To engage in relationship,

Struggling to accept and forgive,

I’ve done so much wrong in my life,

I don’t know sometimes where to start,

Putting off the burdens that weigh my soul,

Looking for helping hand,

None exist,

For I am a man,

Doomed to walk life alone,

Showing any vulnerability is a chance to be attacked,

I only wish,

I hadn’t made all those youthful mistakes,

Of a man lost in mental illness,

Responsibility is mine,

Looking back at the uncontrollable times,

Lost in the throws of madness,

What I wouldn’t give for a cure,

A chance to talk to myself back then,

To tell myself it will be okay,

For a helping hand,

Wishing my wife had a heart and helped me,

Instead she cast me aside to the wolves,

A broken man I was,

Broken I still am,

Glued together by life’s lessons,

Sitting on the ledge,

Kicking my legs back and forth,

Feeling a bit like Humpy Dumpty,

Wishing does me no good,

I know this,

Yet they still float around my mind,

Down the well they go,

I’d give all my coin,

Just to say I love you to them,

To hold them,

And know they are safe today.