You did everything you were supposed to.
So why do you feel so alone?

You paid for the house, the schools, and every holiday.
But you were barely in the room for one.

Because that was the deal.
Keep your head down, provide, and one day it pays off.
You held up your end, but the payout never came.

And now your wife doesn't even ask how your day was.
You can't say when that stopped.
Some nights you lie beside her, and you don't blame her.

Everyone around you is paid to agree.
So you never get to say your thoughts out loud.
There's a whole version of you that nobody knows.

And now your kids aren't listening to a word you say.
They're watching what you do.
And they're quietly deciding what life they want.

No one's blaming you.

And you learned this from a young age,
how to survive, push everything down and keep moving,
and for most of your life it worked,
until it hollowed you out,
from keeping your end of a deal no one else ever signed.

And underneath all of it,

the only thing you want is for one person to know all of you
and not leave.

To be wanted for who you are, not what you provide.
The one thing money could never buy.