A Son Still Stands

A son once cradled in calloused hands,

Born to wealth, yet bound by fate’s demands.

Gold-lined halls and hollow cheers,

A crown of thorns disguised for years.

A father’s will, a mother’s spite,

A love denied, a stolen light.

A boy who learned to stand alone,

His heart a fortress, cold as stone.

He did not weep when storms would rise,

Nor yield to fate’s well-spun disguise.

But silence whispered, shadows grew,

And loneliness, an old wound, knew.

Yet when his father’s breath grew thin,

Grief unlocked the steel within.

The man who once had never cried,

Bowed his head the night he died.

He stood apart, yet stood so tall,

Beside the ones who prayed his fall.

Not for fortune, not for pride,

But for the love he could not hide.

And then she faded—time ran fast,

Did regret find her at the last?

Did she whisper? Did she break?

Or did she leave with no mistake?

Her eyes had held the weight of years,

Yet never softened, never teared.

No words, no warmth, no love returned,

Just echoes in the bridges burned.

A son remains, though all have fled,

No father’s hands to rest his head.

No mother’s voice, no guiding tone,

Just a man now turned to stone.

But though the world may turn away,

Though silence fills both night and day,

A daughter watches, heart aware—

He is not alone. She’s there.

Through shattered past and ghosts untold,

Through wounds still fresh and nights so cold,

She waits, she sees, she does not speak,

But stands beside him, fierce yet meek.

A warmth he barely dares to claim,

A love that does not ask his name.

Not duty-bound, nor tied by chains,

But chosen—despite all his pains.

So in the dark, where shadows creep,

Where echoes of the lost still weep,

He lifts his head, no longer blind—

For love endures, though fate’s unkind.