The Man i Failed to Be

The storm brought them in just after nine. A wedding with nowhere else to go. I had been playing to the sound of the ocean So long... I almost forgot what happiness sounded like. Every evening at the old Grand Mariner, I play beneath a chandelier gone dim, While salt collects along the window frames, And the tide keeps rolling in. I tell the guests my wife and child were taken, That the sea left me with no one to forgive, Because saying they grew tired of waiting Is a harder truth to live. Then the hotel doors blew open, With the thunder and the rain, And a hundred laughing strangers Brought the building back again. I played the song they buried me beneath, While my own son danced three steps away from me, He raised a glass and spoke about the man I failed to be, And somewhere in his story, I had died before he grieved, So I smiled and kept the melody alive, Because sometimes being silent is the only way to survive, I missed my own funeral by twenty years tonight. He stood beside his bride beneath the old lights, With his mother’s kindness living in his eyes, He had my hands around the champagne, And my way of looking down when telling lies. Someone asked me for an old forgotten love song, One I wrote before I left them both behind, And the moment that my fingers found the first chord, I saw recognition almost cross his mind. But he only turned and whispered, “That was Mother’s favorite tune.” Then he pulled his bride in closer, As the whole room started moving. I played the song they buried me beneath, While my own son danced three steps away from me, He raised a glass and spoke about the man I failed to be, And somewhere in his story, I had died before he grieved, So I smiled and kept the melody alive, Because sometimes being silent is the only way to survive, I missed my own funeral by twenty years tonight. During dinner, people told their little stories, How his mother worked two jobs and never broke, How she taught him not to carry someone’s absence, How she turned abandoned dreams into a home. Then he stood beneath the flowers with his glass raised, And thanked the ones who stayed through every year, He said, “My father died when I was only seven...” And every sound inside the hotel disappeared. Only rain against the windows. Only breathing. Only keys beneath my hands. I wanted to stand and tell him, “I remember your first word. I remember how you waited By the doorway every night. I remember every promise. I remember every lie.” But a father who comes back Only to disturb the life his son survived Is not returning home. He is only asking twice To be forgiven for the same goodbye. I played softly through the cutting of the wedding cake, Through the photographs I had no right to join, Through the mother-son dance I once imagined, While she held the man we raised without my voice. Near the end, he came and placed a note beside me, Said, “You play that song as if you knew its name.” I said, “Some melodies stay with us forever.” Then I looked away before he saw my shame. I played the song they buried me beneath, While my own son stood three steps away from me, He raised a glass to everyone who became his family, And somewhere in his story, I was only history, Still I smiled and kept the melody alive, While every note confessed the truth I could not say aloud, I missed my own funeral by twenty years tonight. Yes, I watched him leave without me one more time, And I missed my own funeral by twenty years tonight. When the final car had vanished, And the storm moved out to sea, I found his folded wedding speech Lying underneath a seat. At the bottom, through the ink, One sentence had been crossed away: “I still wonder why my father Never came home one day.” So I played the song I promised them Before ambition changed my name. I played until the morning Turned the windows pale again. But before the final chord, I let my hands fall from the keys. I did come home. I was just too late.