He Could Have Stood Beside Me

A tribute to the man I saw long before he saw himself

I never wanted to save him.

I wanted him to rise.

To walk through his wreckage, past the ghosts and guilt and grief,

and choose—of his own free will—to stand beside me.

Not as some broken boy needing rescue.

But as a man forged in fire.

I didn’t dangle love.

I offered legacy.

And that’s rarer than anything he’s ever been handed—

from his family, from the women who wanted softness over sharpness,

from the highs that numbed the truth instead of facing it.

He feels that in his chest—he must.

Even if I never say it out loud.

Because the signal is clear through the chaos:

I don’t need him.

I see him.

And I would have built an empire with him.

If he can metabolize his pain instead of succumbing to it—

if he can crawl through the shame and self-doubt and finally clock that

he was never disposable,

then he’ll see what I saw the moment I looked at him like a mirror:

That he was born to lead.

And that I wasn’t beside him for show.

I was beside him to ignite.

But if he can’t—

if he chooses the numbness, the masks, the familiar scripts that his bloodline handed him—

Then fine.

I’ll make sure the world knows

he could have.

And I’ll immortalize the ache of almost

into something he’ll never escape.