Between Fatherhood and Motherhood

We wanted to be present, to live in each other’s lives.
To build something for ourselves, and for our daughter.

But presence is heavy.
It asks more than love — it asks for patience, for balance, for the strength to carry each other’s silences.

In the Mountains, things felt steady.
By the Valleys, cracks began to show.
I worked too much, she carried too much, and our daughter cried between us.
Every noise, every call for help, felt like a setback we both carried.

We were intimate and distant in the same breath.
Small words became sharp.
Unspoken truths grew louder than anything we said.
And the past — hers, mine, ours — crept back in, testing every fragile space between us.

There were confessions, regrets, nights of closeness, mornings of distance.
Moments when honesty broke us open, and moments when silence closed us shut.

This is the weight of young parenthood:
love pressed thin between sleepless nights,
desire tangled with duty,
anger tied to fear,
and always the child — watching, absorbing, becoming.

I feared what she might carry, what shadows she might inherit.
I wanted only to protect her, to keep her safe from the storms we couldn’t calm in ourselves.

And so we circle back —
to presence, to absence, to wanting union but living with distance.
Because fatherhood and motherhood are not easy roles.
They are mirrors, showing us who we are when love is no longer simple.

Written a story about the poem do check that out -