The Boy I Warn My Daughter About

I don’t want you to be the warning I have to whisper to my daughter late at night. I don’t want to teach her how to dissect a boy's hesitation, how to measure the distance in a cold email, or how to survive the quiet ache of a gray area. No. I wanted to sit on the edge of her mattress and tell her she has your eyes. I wanted to look at her face and see the poetry we made, the faith we found together in the dark, the steady, permanent thing born from a boy who was brave enough to stay. I wanted your name to be the safety in our house, not the ghost story that teaches her how to protect her own heart. But you chose the safe geometry of the board. You chose the sterile space between the lines. And you left me here holding a future that you were too small to claim. So I am burning the life we didn’t get to live. I am turning the family we didn't make into ash. You don't get to be her father. You just get to be the boy who was too afraid to fall.