The Absence

I woke up to go downstairs and
Find my mother crying in the hall
Just trying to understand why
My brother would just abandon us in the dead of night

I wonder
I wonder if he ever stopped
To think
If he even thought of us at all
Or the fall
Into the cycle of what was done to him
And to me
And making mother go through this again

Her hands tremble and shake
As mine turn to fists of rage
The hall is flooded with tears
As if nothing mattered all these years

This is me facing all my worst fears
Facing all my worst fears
And every time I thought of thе stories that he told
I nevеr thought that I would have to be so bold
Be so bold

And now, the days
They grow harder since he's been away
And I, I'm doing all I can just to help us get by
I watch her health decline
She says that this will heal with time
So I try, to carry the weight of what he left behind
I can't just stand aside
And let two broken men take away her light
I can't stand idly by
While her sickness robs her of her life
I’m forced to be a man
But inside, I know I’m just a child

Trying to carry the dead weight
But I'm buried beneath

I head home from the drug store
With the medicine that she was prescribed
I glance in the alley once more
As I see my brother’s bloodshot eyes
They widen, my fists tighten
I drop the pills, throw my bike aside
You call yourself a man?
Same as him, you chose yourself instead
You coward
Don’t tell me I don’t understand
You may have lost your father
But I lost the only model of a man that I had

I sat and watched by the window
For the day that you'd return
You were the ghost
Of the father I've never known