You promise

you’ll be home tonight

to kiss the kids and

hold me tight

You tell me it won’t be

the same

until it happens

once again

You say I am

the only one

and what’s been done

can’t be undone

I stay quietly alone

all through the day

watching our kids

grow and play

and when the door opens

later at night

they think you’re home,

that they are all right

But bedtime comes

and they can’t wait up

I am the ogre who’s

taken their pup

Little do they know

you don’t give a damn

Fathers’ like you

shouldn’t be called men

© Kait King, 2015