Witness Lyrics

The door came open like a sentence,
Hard wood, hard light, hard breath,
A boy pulled out of dreaming
By a man wearing work like death.

No monster under the bed that night,
No ghost with a churchyard grin,
Just boots, belt, heat, and anger
Walking straight in.

He had a bad day,
Then I had one too,
His rage needed somewhere
A smaller body would do.

He had a bad day,
And I learned mine young,
How a house can grow fists,
How love can bite its tongue.

I don’t remember every hit,
The body keeps what the mind can’t hold,
A flash of sheet, a hand, a wall,
The room gone huge and cold.

I remember being guilty
Before I knew the charge,
A child under adult weather,
A small thing hit by something large.

He had a bad day,
That’s what the grown folks say,
Like a man’s hurt gets hungry
And a kid should pay.

He had a bad day,
Then I wore the proof,
In the way I checked each hallway,
In the way I feared the roof.

Morning came like nothing happened,
Cereal bowl, school shoes, sun,
The world kept putting shirts on bodies
Like the night had never done what it done.

He might have laughed by breakfast,
Might have asked me for the salt,
And I learned the cruelest lesson,
Pain can happen without fault.

He had a bad day,
I had a lifetime after,
A flinch dressed up as manners,
A joke that hid the fracture.

He had a bad day,
I had a mouth gone still,
A heart that heard each footstep
Like thunder on the hill.

I grew around the damage,
Bent root around a stone,
Got funny, got mean, got careful,
Got good at being alone.

I learned when men got quiet,
The room might start to tilt,
I learned an angry sigh
Could turn my blood to guilt.

I learned to read the doorknob,
The weight inside a tread,
The weather in a shoulder,
The danger near a bed.

And years can stack like lumber,
Jobs, grief, skin, scars,
But somewhere in my middle,
That boy still guards the dark.

He had a bad day,
And I was not the cause,
I was not the bill collector,
Not the boss, not the loss.

He had a bad day,
I was only eight or ten,
Old enough to hurt forever,
Too young to stop a man.

There’s no clean way to sing this,
No bow to tie it tight,
A father can be human
And still be wrong that night.

A father can be broken,
Can have debts inside his chest,
Can carry his own old bruises,
And still fail the child he left.

He had a bad day,
And I took the weight,
Not from love, not from justice,
Just from being small and late.

He had a bad day,
That sentence can go rot,
I was a child in a bedroom,
Not a place to empty what he got.

I wish I could wake that boy
Before the door turns wild,
Put my body in the doorway,
Tell him run, kid, run, child.

I wish I could lie beside him
After the room went dead,
Put one hand on his shaking back,
Pull the fear out of the bed.

But all I got is this song,
All I got is this throat,
All I got is the truth
Dragging fire through smoke.

He had a bad day,
I lived past the blow,
Still, some nights I hear that door
And become what I used to know.

He had a bad day,
And I keep waking there,
A grown man full of thunder,
A little boy under the air.

I didn’t want joy.
I didn’t want peace.
I didn’t want heaven in a glass.

I wanted one hour
With the dogs called off,
One hour where the bed stayed still,
One hour where the old fist
Stopped knocking inside my skull.

The drug was a door,
And I walked through crawling,
Not brave,
Not wild,
Not young,
Not free.

Just tired.

Tired of waking with the boy in me shaking,
Tired of love going cold in white light,
Tired of fathers turning mortal too late,
Tired of mothers shrinking into machines,
Tired of art turning its chair to the wall,
Tired of my own mind
Holding me under
And calling it memory.

The drug was a door,
And the door had teeth,
But the room I came from
Had teeth too.

Pick your bite.
Pick your monster.
Pick the dark that leaves the smallest mark.

That’s the math of a man
Who has run out of mercy
For himself.

I said I was only softening the edges.
I said I was only sleeping.
I said I was only borrowing quiet.
I said I was only taking back
One inch of my own head.

Then the inch wanted a mile.
Then the mile wanted blood.
Then the blood wanted ritual.

Same chair.
Same hand.
Same lie.
Same swallow.

N-n-numb me down,
N-n-numb me clean,
Take the father from the doorway,
Take the girl from the machine,
Take the cancer from the mirror,
Take the mother from the bed,
Take the whole damn world
Out back of my head.

N-n-numb me down,
N-n-numb me blind,
Leave no fingerprints
Inside my mind.

People think numb means nothing.
That’s wrong.

Numb has color.
Numb has a taste.
Numb has a schedule.
Numb knows when the lights go low.
Numb knows which songs to ruin.
Numb knows the drawer.
Numb knows the route.
Numb knows how to make a man
Thank the snake for less venom.

I didn’t fall in love with dying.
I fell in love with not feeling dead
For twenty lying minutes.

That’s worse.
That’s the hook.

Not the heaven.
The pause.

The small false mercy
Of being let out of myself
With a chain around my ankle.

The drug was a door,
And behind it was another door,
And behind that door
Was a hallway with no windows,
And behind that hallway
Was me,
Kneeling beside myself,
Trying to wake the man
Who kept choosing smoke
Over sunrise.

I hated myself awake.
I hated myself high.
I hated myself coming down
With my mouth full of promises
I had already ruined.

I hated the phone.
I hated the mirror.
I hated the daybreak.
I hated anyone who loved me enough
To watch me disappear in pieces.

The drug was a door,
But it never led out.
It only led lower,
To a basement painted like rest.

N-n-numb me down,
N-n-numb me gone,
Turn the wound to weather,
Turn the scream to song,
Take the bed, take the blame,
Take the bad blood in my chest,
Take the man I almost was
And let the wreckage rest.

N-n-numb me down,
N-n-numb me sweet,
Lie to every nerve
That death has smaller feet.

Then one morning came in mean.
Not holy.
Not clean.
Not shining through curtains
With some movie mercy.

Just mean.

Mouth dry.
Hands wrong.
Body angry.
Soul standing there
Like an unpaid debt.

And I knew.

Not with wisdom.
Not with strength.
Not with some pretty light.

I knew with the animal part
That wants to live
After every human part
Has made its case.

The drug was a door.
The door was a mouth.
The mouth was mine.

I had been feeding it
Everything I missed.
Everything I hated.
Everything I couldn’t bury.
Everything I couldn’t forgive.

The drug was a door,
And I was tired of doors.
Tired of leaving myself.
Tired of waking up
In a life I had robbed overnight.

I didn’t get clean in one brave scene.
No choir.
No flood.
No clear sky.

Just a sick man
With shaking hands
Finally telling the lie
It had to move out.

N-n-numb me down,
No.
N-n-numb me clean,
No.
Take the father from the doorway,
No.
Take the girl from the machine,
No.

Leave me with the wound.
Leave me with the shaking.
Leave me with the memory
Still biting through the sheets.

Leave me with the pain
I tried to drown.

At least pain
Knows where I live.

They say do not speak ill of the dead,
As if the dead quit owning rooms,
As if the grave can scrub a hand,
As if dirt teaches mercy to the truth.

They say remember better things,
The joke, the chair, the working hands,
The man who carried heavy loads,
The man who did the best he can.

But best can still leave bruises,
Best can still miss marks,
Best can pull a child from sleep
And leave a hallway full of sparks.

Do not speak ill,
Do not speak ill,
Lower your voice by the casket still,
Fold up the rage,
Comb back the blame,
Let the dead leave clean
With a borrowed saint face.

Do not speak ill,
But what do I do
With the boy in the bed
Who remembers him too?

I wanted him simple after death,
A monster or a decent man,
Something clean enough to hate,
Something clean enough to understand.

But grief came in with both hands full,
One held love and one held debt,
One held every thing he gave,
One held what I can’t forget.

I miss his laugh and hate his temper,
Miss his voice and curse his fists,
Miss the father I kept chasing,
Hate the one who still exists.

Do not speak ill,
Do not speak ill,
That sentence tastes like iron still,
Light up the room,
Darken the bruise,
Tell me which father
I’m allowed to lose.

Do not speak ill,
But don’t ask me to lie,
Some men die once in the ground
And keep dying in a child.

I stood there near the flowers,
With my throat full of dust,
Watching people praise a version
I had wanted too damn much.

They meant no harm with kindness,
They brought stories tied in thread,
But every gentle word felt heavy,
Like a blanket on my head.

I wanted to defend him.
I wanted to accuse.
I wanted one clean memory
That didn’t split in two.

I wanted to be loyal.
I wanted to be free.
I wanted him to answer
For the boy he left in me.

Do not speak ill,
Do not speak ill,
The dead sleep hard and the living still
Carry the door,
Carry the belt,
Carry the love
That never knew how to help.

Do not speak ill,
But I have to speak true,
I can mourn the man
And still mourn what he’d do.

Maybe he was tired.
Maybe life had teeth.
Maybe pain had raised him
With its knee on his grief.

Maybe no one held him
When his own night broke.
Maybe every wrong he carried
Learned my room by smoke.

That don’t make it right.
That don’t make it fair.
That don’t put one hand
Between the child and air.

That don’t make me cruel
For saying what stayed.
Love is not a gag
On the mouth of pain.

Do not speak ill,
No, I’ll speak whole,
The soft and the brutal,
The blood and the soul.

Do not speak ill,
No, let truth stand near,
With flowers in one hand
And fire in the other here.

I loved him.
I hate that sentence.
I feared him.
I hate that too.

I buried him.
I kept him.
I left him.
I never knew how to.

Do not speak ill,
They can keep that prayer,
I’ll speak like a son
Who still finds him there.

Not saint.
Not devil.
Not easy.
Not gone.

Just father.
Just fracture.
Just love
With damage on.

When he died, I lost the argument,
Not won, not settled, not healed,
Just gone from any room where I could place it,
Gone from any chance to hear him say
He knew what he had done.
The living want the dead made lighter.
They want soft stories by the flowers.
They want the good chair, the hard work,
The jokes that landed right,
The old photographs where nobody can hear the yelling.
They don’t want the boy pulled from sleep.
They don’t want the room with its breath held tight.
They don’t want the father and the fear
Standing in the same skin.
I get it.
I hate that I get it.
A man dies, and everybody brings a candle.
Nobody brings the door he broke inside you.
When he died,
The anger had nowhere to stand,
No chest to strike,
No mouth to answer,
No eyes to look away from mine.
When he died,
The love had nowhere to go,
So it circled back
And bit me in the heart.
I wanted to mourn clean.
I wanted to be the son people understand,
Head bowed,
Hands folded,
Voice careful in the polite air.
I wanted the simple grief.
The kind that says
He was good,
I miss him,
The world is smaller now.
But mine came in carrying furniture.
It dragged in the bed.
It dragged in the hallway.
It dragged in every breakfast after a bad night
Where he acted like the sun
Had washed him innocent.
It dragged in the part of me
That still wanted his approval,
Still wanted the nod,
Still wanted the impossible version
Where he turned around before dying
And became the father
I kept building from scraps.
When he died,
I lost the argument,
But the argument did not die.
It moved into my ribs.
It sat behind my jokes.
It showed up when another man raised his voice.
It showed up when I was tired enough
To sound like him.
That is the horror nobody sings right.
Not only that he hurt me.
Not only that I loved him.
That sometimes,
In a flash of temper,
In a hard word,
In a silence that punishes,
I can feel the shape of him
Trying to borrow my mouth.
And I hate him then.
And I hate myself then.
And I miss him then.
All at once.
What kind of hell is that,
To grieve the man
You are still trying not to become?
People say forgive him.
People say he had pain too.
People say men of that time,
Men of that world,
Men with bills and bad backs
And old wounds nobody kissed.
I know.
That knowledge sits beside the bruise.
It does not erase it.
A reason is not a pardon.
A wound with a family tree
Still bleeds from the branch that hit you.
I can hold his tired hands in memory
And still say those hands were wrong.
I can remember him laughing
And still hear the belt in the drawer.
I can love the dead man
And protect the living child
He left behind in me.
When he died,
Nobody told me grief could feel like betrayal.
If I cried, I betrayed the boy.
If I raged, I betrayed the father.
If I stayed silent, I betrayed the truth.
If I spoke, I felt the room turn cold.
So I stood there split,
A grown man at a grave,
A child under a blanket,
Both of us waiting for a door
That would never open right again.
When he died,
I wanted one impossible thing.
Not heaven.
Not apology from the dirt.
Not a perfect final scene.
I wanted him alive for one honest minute.
Just one.
No excuses.
No weather.
No tired face.
No old story about how hard life was.
One minute where he looked at me
And saw the boy,
Not the problem,
Not the mouth,
Not the place to put his rage.
One minute where he said
You were small.
I was wrong.
It was mine.
Not yours.
That minute never came.
So I carry it myself.
I give it to the boy when the night gets loud.
I give it to the hand that still flinches.
I give it to the man in the mirror
When his eyes look too much like a house on fire.
You were small.
He was wrong.
It was his.
Not yours.
When he died,
I lost the argument,
But maybe I found the witness.
Me.
Too late to save the child from that room,
Too late to drag the father back from death,
Too late to make the flowers tell the whole truth.
But not too late
To stop calling silence respect.
Not too late
To love him without lying.
Not too late
To let the boy come out from under the blanket
And breathe like he was never the crime.

After The Numb

Cleaning up didn’t feel like winning.
It felt like waking in a house
After the firemen left.

Wet walls.
Black ribs.
A smell that never says sorry.

Everybody loves the comeback
When it fits in a sentence.

Nobody wants the part
Where the man is sober
And the grief comes home
With all its bags.

After the numb,
The room got loud,
The clock had claws,
The bed learned how
To hold me down.

After the numb,
No smoke, no veil,
Just every ghost
With fresh mail.

I thought clean meant clear.
It didn’t.

Clean meant no curtain.
Clean meant no glass between me
And the thing in the corner.

Clean meant feeling my father die
Without a chemical hand
Over my eyes.

Clean meant hearing my mother gone
In the plainest air.

Clean meant my heart
Staying dead
All day.

Not in a storm.
Not in some dramatic hour.
Just while coffee brewed.
Just while a car passed.
Just while light touched the sink
Like nothing sacred had been stolen.

After the numb,
I met the wound sober,
No mask,
No flood,
No borrowed sleep.

After the numb,
I learned grief had waited,
Patient as mold,
Faithful as debt,
Mean as a locked drawer.

The first clean laugh hurt.
That shocked me most.

I laughed,
Then guilt came fast,
Like it had been standing outside
With a fist raised.

How dare the mouth move.
How dare the lungs keep time.
How dare one small stupid joke
Climb out of the graveyard
Wearing my face.

After the numb,
Joy came limping,
And I hated it too.

Not enough to refuse it.
Just enough to distrust the warmth.

I didn’t want to be saved
By little things.

A warm plate.
A dumb song.
A cat hair on a black shirt.
A stranger holding a door.
A pen working right for one clean line.

It felt insulting.

All that death,
And life kept using scraps.

After the numb,
The world got sharp,
Spoons in drawers,
Rain on cars,
Shoes on stairs,
A certain smell
From hospital soap.

Everything had teeth.
Everything knew me.
Everything touched the bruise
By accident.

I missed the blur.

God help me,
I missed the blur.

Not the ruin.
Not the lying.
Not the empty wallet.
Not the sick look in the mirror.
Not the hurt I gave away for free.

I missed the moment
Before the memory landed.

I missed the false second
Where my mind was not a crime scene.

After the numb,
No more mercy from the poison,
No more hush from the flame,
No more rented silence
With interest in my blood.

After the numb,
Just me and the day,
Two ugly survivors
Staring each other down.

Some days clean meant strong.
Some days clean meant mean.
Some days clean meant gripping the sink
Till my knuckles looked dead,
Saying no to nobody but myself.

Some days clean meant
Not calling.
Not buying.
Not swallowing.
Not vanishing.

Some days clean meant
Sitting in the full wreck
With no exit lit.

That is not a small thing.

Don’t let anyone make it small.

After the numb,
I didn’t become new.
I became present.

Present for the ache.
Present for the bill.
Present for the diagnosis.
Present for the dead.
Present for the art
When it came back wounded
And sat beside me.

After the numb,
The boy in the bed
Had no drug to hide him.

I had to find him myself.

I had to sit on the floor
Of that old night
And tell him what nobody told him.

It wasn’t yours.
It wasn’t yours.
It wasn’t yours.

After the numb,
The shaking stayed,
But the lie got weaker.

After the numb,
The grief stayed,
But I could hear my own voice under it.

After the numb,
Nothing got easy.

Only honest.

And honest hurt
Like waking up with stitches,
Like daylight on a wound,
Like living without anesthesia
In the house that made you.

After the numb,
I did not rise.

I remained.

Some mornings,
That was all the resurrection
I had.

There is a cruelty nobody warns you for,
The day your mother starts getting small,
Not in memory, not in childhood,
But right there in the bed,
Right there under the sheet,
Right there with her hands colder than they should be.

The woman who once filled doorways,
Who knew where everything was,
Who could make a kitchen obey,
Who could turn worry into weather,
Starts leaving by inches.

A voice gets thinner.
A wrist gets lighter.
A sentence breaks halfway across the room.

You stand there grown,
Too old to cry like a child,
Too young to be without her.

You watch the nurse adjust the blanket,
Watch the machine keep its manners,
Watch the wall pretend it has seen worse,
And maybe it has.

That don’t help.

Mother gets small,
And the world gets loud,
Every little breath
Pulls the ceiling down.

Mother gets small,
And the boy in your chest
Starts looking for the woman
Who always knew what came next.

There are things a son cannot fix.
That is the first betrayal.

A loose hinge, maybe.
A dead bulb, maybe.
A bill, a form, a ride, a chair.

But not blood.
Not bone.
Not the slow theft of her body.
Not the terrible math
Of less and less.

You want to pick a fight with heaven.
You want to sue the walls.
You want to threaten the dark
Like it gives a damn.

You want the old version back,
The one who drove you crazy,
The one who repeated herself,
The one who asked if you ate,
The one who worried too much,
The one whose worry was love
Wearing an apron and bad timing.

Then the room gives you this version,
Small under covers,
Brave in flashes,
Scared when she thinks nobody sees.

Mother gets small,
And every old argument
Turns to ash in your mouth.

Mother gets small,
And you would trade
A thousand right answers
For one more ordinary call.

You remember stupid things.

A cabinet sound.
A laundry smell.
Her hand wiping crumbs from a table.
The way she said your full childhood
Without needing every word.

You remember being annoyed.
That part hurts worst.

Every eye roll comes back armed.
Every rushed goodbye grows teeth.
Every I’ll call later
Sits at the foot of the bed
Like a witness.

You want to confess
To things she already forgave.
You want to apologize
For being tired,
For being grown,
For being human,
For not knowing the final version
Was already walking toward you.

Mother gets small,
And time gets cruel,
No lesson,
No ribbon,
No clean little rule.

Mother gets small,
And love kneels there,
Helpless as a child
With both hands full of air.

Some people say she’s at peace
Before peace has touched your face.
Some people say she is better now
While you are getting worse in real time.

They mean kindness.
Kindness can still cut.

You don’t want better.
You want her.

Not holy.
Not far.
Not changed into light.
Not explained by anyone
With dry eyes and a quiet car waiting.

You want the chair pulled out.
You want the cup refilled.
You want her asking the same damn thing
She asked three times already.

You want the nuisance.
You want the worry.
You want the life
Before it turned precious.

Mother gets small,
Then the room gets huge,
And the house learns a silence
Nothing can use.

Mother gets small,
Then she is gone,
And every son becomes
A child too long.

I still feel it sometimes,
Not as memory,
As weather in the body.

A kitchen goes quiet.
A phone stays dark.
A holiday opens its mouth.
A grocery aisle smells like years ago.

And there she is,
Not returned,
Not saved,
Just suddenly missing harder.

Mother gets small,
But the missing does not,
It grows new hands,
It learns new spots.

Mother gets small,
Then the years move on,
Dragging her absence
Through every dawn.

I wish I had held more patience.
I wish I had spent less pride.
I wish every small complaint
Had died before she died.

But love is always late
To its own full meaning.

You think you know.
You don’t.

Then the bed gets empty,
And the room tells you.

The future had her face,
And then the future lost its body.
That is the part I still cannot say right.
People think death takes a person,
One person,
One life,
One place at the table.
No.
Death takes the weather ten years from now.
Death takes the dumb little kitchen fight
About where the spoons should go.
Death takes the gray hair you never got to see.
Death takes the hand reaching across a bed
On a morning that never earns a date.
Death takes the version of you
Who would have been loved longer.
I had a whole life leaning toward her.
Not perfect.
Not clean.
Not some greeting-card mercy.
A real one.
Bills and bad moods.
Laundry and body heat.
Old jokes getting worse.
Her voice from the next room.
My flaws known too well.
Her flaws forgiven in advance.
A door opening.
A car pulling in.
Two people becoming ordinary
In the most sacred possible way.
Then the body turned against her,
And the future started losing rooms.
First the easy plans.
Then the far ones.
Then the brave ones.
Then the ones too small to notice
Until they were gone.
A walk.
A meal.
A stupid movie.
A hand warm in mine
Without fear counting under the skin.
The future had her face,
Then the hospital taught it how to disappear.
I remember the light.
I hate the light.
White light on her skin.
White light on the sheet.
White light on tubes and rails and plastic.
White light pretending it had no opinion
While it stole color from the world.
I remember wanting to climb inside her pain
And punch through it from the inside.
I remember thinking
Take me, take me, take me,
With no poetry in it.
Just animal bargain.
Just love losing its mind.
Just a man with nothing useful in his hands
Begging the air like air had a supervisor.
The future had her face,
Then every clock became cruel.
The clock said still here.
The clock said not yet.
The clock said maybe.
The clock said less.
The clock kept its little job
While my whole life quit making sense.
There are sounds I do not forgive.
Machines.
Rubber soles.
Curtains pulled on metal rings.
A chair shifting near a bed.
A careful voice outside a door.
Breath changing.
There is a kind of quiet
That arrives before the end
And starts moving in.
I knew it before I knew it.
My mind tried to board up the windows.
My heart kicked them back open.
My body stood there receiving truth
In pieces too sharp to hold.
The future had her face,
And I had to watch it become memory.
That is a violent thing.
Not loud violent.
Not glass-breaking violent.
Worse.
A soft theft.
A hand removing tomorrow
Without raising its voice.
Afterward,
People wanted me to keep living,
Which felt insulting.
Not cruel.
Just impossible.
Eat something.
Sleep if you can.
Call me.
Take it day by day.
Day by day.
What a stupid unit of measurement
After losing forever.
I did not want days.
I wanted her.
I did not want healing.
I wanted the bed unbroken.
I did not want strength.
I wanted the future back
With her laugh still inside it.
Grief made a liar out of every room.
The kitchen said she might walk in.
The phone said she might call.
The bed said turn over.
The road said go home.
The world said continue.
My body continued.
That was not the same as consent.
I kept living like a man being dragged
By a horse he used to love.
The future had her face,
And now the future has a hole
That still resembles her.
That is what they do not tell you.
The absence takes shape.
It learns posture.
It sits beside you.
It rides in the car.
It stands in the store.
It waits in good news.
It sleeps on the side of the bed
Where warmth once had a pulse.
I have laughed since then.
That feels like betrayal some days.
I have wanted things since then.
That feels impossible.
I have made art,
Told jokes,
Fed myself,
Woken up,
Touched light,
Cursed God,
Cursed time,
Cursed the body,
Cursed every person who said
She would want me happy.
Maybe she would.
That does not make happiness easy.
That does not make joy innocent.
That does not make the living less haunted.
The future had her face,
And I still love the face
That time could not keep.
I love what stayed.
I love what was stolen.
I love the ache that proves
Something sacred stood here.
I love her past the last breath.
I love her past the last room.
I love her past the part of language
That breaks and starts crawling.
No lesson.
No bow.
No clean ending.
Just this.
The future had her face.
Some days,
I still turn toward it.

I burned the art when I thought it left me.
Not one page.
Not a bad sketch.
Not some half-made thing
With one crooked hand
And a mouth I hated.
I fed it years.
Stacks of paper,
Characters with lives,
Lines I’d pulled from places
I didn’t know had doors.
I watched them blacken.
The faces curled first,
Like they were trying to turn away,
Like even paper
Knew betrayal when it smelled my hands.
I said good.
I said go.
I said leave then,
If leaving is what you do.
The fire took the drawings,
And I stood there helping,
Like a priest with no god,
Like a father with no mercy,
Like a man killing proof
That he had ever been alive.
The fire took the drawings,
But it did not take the need,
It only made the room smell
Like a funeral for me.
I thought the gift had abandoned me,
That cruel little light in the skull,
That thing that had carried me
When people didn’t,
When houses didn’t,
When love walked out or died.
I thought the art turned its back.
No line would land.
No face would come.
No scene would open.
No hidden engine under the ribs.
Just blank paper.
Blank paper is not empty
When you used to make worlds.
Blank paper is a locked door
Laughing without sound.
I burned the art
To beat it to the leaving.
I burned the art
So I could be the one
Who made the loss happen.
That’s an ugly kind of control,
But grief will eat from any plate.
The fire took the drawings,
And I called it judgment,
Called it cleaning,
Called it proof I didn’t care.
Then the smoke got in my clothes,
And I carried them anyway.
The fire took the drawings,
But the ash knew my hand,
Every black flake rising
Like a small dead bird.
I hated myself before the match.
I hated myself after.
The fire changed nothing
But the number of things left to forgive.
Art don’t leave like people leave.
It don’t pack a bag.
It don’t kiss your forehead cold.
It don’t stop breathing in a white room.
It waits.
That’s worse some days.
It waits while you break yourself.
It waits while you curse it.
It waits while you numb the place
Where the colors used to crawl.
It waits
With no pity
And no apology.
The fire took the drawings,
And the boy inside me watched,
The same boy who learned
That beautiful things can get punished
When the wrong man has pain.
The fire took the drawings,
And my hands smelled like my father’s anger,
My own anger,
All anger,
One long family line of heat.
I wanted to hurt the thing
That wouldn’t save me.
I wanted to hurt the thing
That made me feel chosen,
Then left me staring
At a dead white page.
I wanted to hurt the thing
That knew me too well.
The fire took the drawings,
But not the hunger,
Not the voices,
Not the sick little need
To make a world from blood and junk.
The fire took the drawings,
Then left me with my hands,
Empty,
Dirty,
Still reaching.
Years later,
I still see one face from the pile.
Not the best one.
Not the cleanest.
Some half-finished stranger
With one eye too sad
And a jaw not quite right.
I think that one knew.
I think that one watched me
More than I watched it.
The fire took the drawings,
And I still owe them witness,
Still owe them grief,
Still owe them this.
I burned my own evidence,
Then wondered why I felt erased.
I burned the art when I thought it left me.
It had not left.
I had.

I got as far as the quiet.
Not the loud kind,
not the movie kind,
not the scream that warns the room.
The real kind.
The kind where the body stops arguing
and the mind says yes
the way a tired man says yes
to the chair at the end of a hallway
he doesn’t remember walking down.
I had done the math.
Not the cruel kind.
The kind that passes for reasonable
at three in the morning
when the pills have your handwriting
and the grief has your keys
and the stroke left a fog
that the fog said was clarity.
I burned the drawings first.
That was the confession my hands made
before my mouth could stop them.
When a man burns proof
that he was ever alive,
the burning is the first death.
The second one just finishes the paperwork.
I was hours away.
Not days.
Hours.
The kind of hours
that don’t feel like time anymore,
that feel like a hallway
getting narrower
while the light behind you
closes like a throat.
Then a sound.
Not God.
Not angels.
Not the cavalry or the sermon
or the right person calling at the right time.
Just A bag.
On the ground.
Something moving inside it
that shouldn’t have been moving
because whoever put it there
decided it shouldn’t move again.
I opened the bag
the way you open a thing
when you’re not sure
you want to see what’s inside
but your hands are already there
and the hands don’t know
you were leaving.
Kittens.
Small.
Some of them still.
One of them not still.
One of them broken at the hip
and looking at me
with the stare
of something too small to know
it should be afraid.
He didn’t save me.
Let me say that plain.
He didn’t fix the fog.
He didn’t undo the math.
He didn’t make the grief
fold itself into something
I could carry with dignity.
He paused me.
That’s all.
One pause.
The kind of pause
a broken thing gives another broken thing
just by being there
at the wrong time
in the right bag
with a hip that needed help
from hands that were about to stop working.
The pause was long enough.
Not long enough to heal.
Long enough to drive.
Long enough to say
I’ll do this one thing first.
Long enough for first
to turn into next
and next to turn into morning
and morning to turn into
the version of me
that’s still here
writing this.
I am not a survivor.
That word is too clean.
I am an almost.
I almost wasn’t here.
The distance between me
and the place I was going
is one broken kitten
in a bag on the ground
at the exact second
my hands were still open.
If you are in the quiet right now,
I am not going to tell you it gets better.
I don’t know your quiet.
I know mine had teeth.
I am going to tell you
that sometimes the pause
doesn’t come from the place
you were promised it would come.
It doesn’t come from heaven.
It doesn’t come from a phone call.
It doesn’t come from strength.
Sometimes it comes from a bag.
Sometimes it comes from a sound
too small to be a reason
but big enough to be a pause.
And the pause is the whole thing.
The pause is where you live.
Not the after.
Not the healing.
Not the story
where the music swells
and the man stands tall.
Just the pause.
Just the second
where the hands stop
because something small
and broken and alive
needed them more than the dark did.
I’m still here.
Not because I’m brave.
Because a kitten had a broken hip
and I had two more hours in me
and the hours turned into years
and the years turned into this.
The almost is the truest thing I own.
I carry it the way I carry Tater,
close to the body,
warm from the holding,
never quite sure
who rescued who.

The word sat down before I did.

It waited in the room
With the paper on the table,
With the doctor’s mouth
Already shaped for damage,
With the wall clock clicking
Like a nervous liar.

Cancer.

A small word.
A blunt word.
A word with dirty boots.

It walked through my skin
Before I could stand up.

I heard it,
But I did not hear it.

That is how terror works.
It breaks the sound from the meaning
And leaves you holding both halves.

The word in the chair
Had already made itself comfortable,
Had already moved furniture,
Had already opened drawers
Inside my life.

The word in the chair
Looked at me like rent was due.

I thought of my body
As a thing I had dragged through hell,
A stubborn old vehicle,
Ugly, loyal, patched with wire,
Still coughing forward.

Then the body became a room
Where something bad had signed the lease.

I wanted to be hard.
I wanted the old joke ready.
I wanted to spit some black little line
And make the room obey me.

But the fear was quick.

It got to my throat first.
It got to my stomach.
It got behind my eyes
And stood there
With both hands on the light.

Cancer.

There it was.

Not a movie shadow.
Not someone else’s bad call.
Not a word you say gently
Near other people’s beds.

Mine.

The word in the chair
Had my paperwork,
Had my scan,
Had my future
By the shirt.

The word in the chair
Did not raise its voice.
It did not need to.

I walked out carrying a new weather.
The parking lot looked wrong.
Cars kept being cars.
People kept crossing lines.
A man laughed into his phone.
A bird hit the air and kept going.

The world is obscene that way,
How it refuses to freeze
When your blood does.

I wanted every stranger to know.
I wanted no one to know.

I wanted somebody to stop me
And say the word had been mistaken,
The room had been drunk,
The paper had lied,
The body had only been joking.

But nobody stopped me.

I drove home with both hands
On a life that felt suddenly rented.

The word came with me.
Sat in the passenger seat.
Did not blink.
Did not buckle up.

Cancer.

A word like a locked jaw.
A word like dirt under the tongue.
A word like a bill
Sent from the grave
Before you get there.

I looked in the mirror different after that.

Not older.
Not weaker.
Stranger.

Like my own skin
Had kept a secret from me.
Like the face looking back
Had been living with a loaded gun
In the next room.

The word in the chair
Followed me into sleep,
Followed me into the shower,
Followed me into every joke
I tried to throw over it.

The word in the chair
Did not care how funny I got.

That was the part I hated.

Fear with no sense of humor.
Death with no timing.
A diagnosis
That would not clap for my best defense.

I have survived too much
To be gentle with threats.

I wanted rage.
I wanted teeth.
I wanted to curse the cells by each one.
I wanted to drag the whole sickness outside
And beat it in the driveway
With every year it thought it could take.

But some nights,
I only sat there.

That is the truth.

No speech.
No fight music.
No noble fire.

Just a man
Sitting in the aftersound
Of one word.

Cancer.

The word in the chair
Had not killed me.

Not yet.

That mattered.

Maybe not like triumph.
Maybe not like hope.
More like a handhold
On a wall in a burning hall.

Not yet.

I could still stand.
I could still curse.
I could still make something.
I could still love the dead
And feed the living ache.
I could still put one ugly line
After another ugly line
Until the page breathed smoke.

The word in the chair
Can sit there.

Let it.

I have sat with worse.
I have sat with empty beds,
With childhood doors,
With burned art,
With clean mornings
That felt like punishment.

Cancer is a thief,
But it is not the first thief.

The word in the chair
Can watch me write.

It can watch me shake.
It can watch me laugh wrong.
It can watch me check my skin
Like a man reading threats
In his own walls.

It can watch.

I am still here
Making the room answer.

Cancer.

Say it once.
Let it be ugly.
Let it be real.
Let it lose the cheap power
Of hiding in the mouth.

The word sat down before I did.

It did not ask.

Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock

I’m afraid

(Verse 1)
The mirror doesn’t flinch when I peel back the day
It shows what’s stayed too long under borrowed skin
I learned the language of margins and biopsy ink
Waiting rooms hum like engines that never lift off

(Verse 2)
I count the hours by fluorescent buzz and paperwork
By the way fear learns my name and keeps it
Every scrape of metal in my mouth tastes like odds
Every promise sounds rented, month to month

(Chorus)
Cancer spreads, quiet and exact
No sirens, no drama, just arithmetic
It takes a little at a time and calls it patience
I stay standing, but the floor keeps moving

(Verse 3)
Friends speak of bravery like it’s a light switch
I nod, pocket the word, don’t turn it on
I’ve seen strength bend until it’s just leverage
I’ve seen faith sweat when the gloves come off

(Bridge)
If this is a war, it’s fought with calendars
With skin that remembers every insult
I don’t need a hero, I need a morning
Where the pain doesn’t clock in early

(Slow and soft)
Heal My Soul

(Verse 1)
Lower the room, let the noise fall away
Sit with me where the breath is enough
I’m tired of fighting verbs and numbers
I want a sentence that doesn’t bruise

(Verse 2)
Put your hand where the fear keeps hiding
Not to fix it, just to stay
Some nights the bravest thing I do
Is let the quiet hold me up

(Chorus)
Heal my soul, not the headlines
Not the scans, not the scores
Heal the part that keeps showing up
When the body asks for more

(Verse 3)
I don’t need angels or a finish line
I need time to mean something again
Teach my heart to rest without quitting
Teach my skin it can still be home

(Bridge)
If hope is a muscle, let it twitch
If peace is real, let it sit
I’ll take small mercies that don’t announce themselves
I’ll take a night that doesn’t argue

(Outro)

Cancer spreads, that’s the truth I carry
Heal my soul, that’s the work I choose
I walk both lines, I don’t pretend otherwise
I stay here, breathing, doing the next right thing
Until the body and the spirit learn
They’re on the same side again

Tick tock
Tick tock
I
I am afraid
If there’s a god above of the fates below
Some divine power that I’ll never know
Till the time has come and I just let go..
Heal me
I’m begging you heal my
Heal my soul

Hey Jude… Don’t make it sad..

[…. patron of hopeless cases and of things despaired of. Pray for me who am so needy; make use, I implore you of that .." ]
If hope is a muscle, let it twitch
If peace is real, let it sit
I’ll take small mercies that don’t announce themselves
I’ll take a night that doesn’t argue

" .. promise to make your name known .. "

[Jude, don’t make it bad.. take a sad song and make it better ]

" .. the oft forgotten, You shall remembered be. .. "

If there’s a god above of the fates below
Some divine power that I’ll never know
Till the time has come and I just let go..

(Verse 1)
I’ve been living off the change that falls between bad days,
finding grace in small mechanics, borrowed light, bent nails.
When nothing worked, something still answered the door,
not with thunder or instruction, just a reason to stay a little more.

(Verse 2)
You didn’t promise exits or a cleaner sky,
you showed up as friction, as a stubborn why.
Every time the math said quit, the ground said stand,
I don’t know who to thank, so I thank the hand.

(Chorus)
This is me saying thanks for the quiet saves,
for the nights that didn’t win, for the scars that stayed.
I don’t need a name or a frame to believe,
somebody kept a light on when it wasn’t supposed to be.

(Verse 3)
I’ve learned how hope hides in unmarked rooms,
in the space between panic and making it through.
I’ve learned how mercy doesn’t look polite,
it looks like surviving another night.

(Verse 4)
If you’re listening without wanting credit,
if you trade in lost causes and never admit it,
then you already know why I’m still here,
gratitude sharp as it is sincere.

(Chorus)
This is me saying thanks for the near-misses,
for the breath that returned when I thought it didn’t.
I don’t kneel, I don’t bargain, I don’t pretend,
I just noticed something held me when the line went thin.

(Bridge)
And now the road’s getting narrow again,
the same old weight, the same bad weather setting in.
I’m not asking for a miracle, just accuracy,
aim the strength at what’s left of me.

(Verse 5)
If you deal in the almost-gone, the written-off,
the ones still moving after the stop-loss dropped,
I’m standing right where the margin lives,
with what I’ve got left to give.

(Final Chorus)
So if there’s a favor left unspent,
let it land where the damage went.
Not louder days or borrowed shine,
just steady hands and a little more time.

(Outro)
I don’t need saving, I need staying power,
I don’t need heaven, I need this hour.
If someone’s been walking with me unseen,
then walk with me now, keep me .. me .

Hey Jude… Don’t make it sad..

[…. patron of hopeless cases and of things despaired of. Pray for me who am so needy; make use, I implore you of that .." ]
If hope is a muscle, let it twitch
If peace is real, let it sit
I’ll take small mercies that don’t announce themselves
I’ll take a night that doesn’t argue

" .. promise to make your name known .. "

Cancer spreads, that’s the truth I carry
Heal my soul, that’s the work I choose
[Jude, don’t make it bad.. take a sad song and make it better ]

" .. the oft forgotten, You shall remembered be. .. "

I remember you, Saint Jude

If there’s a god above of the fates below
Some divine power that I’ll never know
Till the time has come and I just let go..

I came in cracked with my teeth bracing for bad weather,
A boy in the blanket still bracing for leather,
A match in my hand and a page in my throat,
A house full of ghosts wearing ordinary coats.

The room got loud,
The bed got mean,
The father-shaped thunder
Came walking through sleep.

The art caught fire,
The smoke knew me,
Every little paper face
Turned black while trying to breathe.

Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Don’t call me weak,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
I learned to bleed through my teeth,
Door hit, floor split,
Bad little prayer in a burning hand,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Still too loud to leave.

I drank for the mute place,
Drowned for the still,
Took the false hush
From the back of the pill.

Clean came cruel,
Clean came cold,
Clean put every dead thing
Back in the room to hold.

Mother got small,
The phone went black,
A kitchen kept waiting
For a voice to come back.

Love wore wires,
White walls, white light,
My hands begged heaven
And lost that fight.

Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Don’t call me weak,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
I learned to bleed through my teeth,
Scan light, ash bite,
Hospital hum in a ruined man,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Still too loud to leave.

Break the door,
Break the bed,
Break the clock
Inside my head.

Break the skin,
Break the bone,
Break the place
That called itself home.

Break the song,
Break the hand,
Break the future
Where she used to stand.

Break the joke,
Break the grin,
Break me open,
Let the noise get in.

Cancer sat down
With its boots on clean,
Looked at my body
Like it owned the deed.

The mirror got strange,
The room leaned wrong,
My fear got teeth
And my mouth made songs.

I loved the dead,
I cursed the dirt,
I held the flowers
And the fire that hurt.

I tried to be fine,
I tried to be stone,
I tried to stop hearing
That child alone.

Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Don’t call me weak,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
I learned to bleed through my teeth,
Dead laugh, bad bath,
Clean morning clawing at the living man,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Still too loud to leave.

I am not whole.
I am not healed.
I am not soft clay
For the world to seal.

I am not proof
That pain gets kind.
I am the wound
With a working mind.

I am the match
That survived the rain.
I am the laugh
With a limp from pain.

I am the kid
Who got out of the room.
I am the art
Coming back from the fumes.

Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Hear that ugly bell,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
I dragged my voice out of hell,
Burnt page, rib cage,
Bad blood singing through a busted man,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Still too loud to leave.

Broken,
That’s where it starts,
Broken,
With the teeth in the heart,
Broken,
With the ash in the lung,
Broken,
But the song still comes.

Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Don’t call me weak,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
I learned to bleed through my teeth,
Door hit, floor split,
Bad little prayer in a burning hand,
Bro-bro-bro-broken,
Still too loud to leave.

They said time heals all wounds,
Like time came home with clean hands,
Like it knew where the medicine was,
Like it could lift you from the sheets again.

They said time heals all wounds,
While the room kept your shape,
While the cup stayed where you left it,
While the air forgot how to move.

The clock on the wall kept working,
Little coward with a steady face,
Ticking over every ruin
Like it never learned your place.

Time heals all wounds,
That’s what people say,
When they need grief to leave the room
And make itself behave,
Time heals all wounds,
No, time just walks around the blood,
Steps over what it cannot touch,
And calls that mercy enough.

I kept hearing your almost laugh
In the pipes and the floor,
Kept turning toward nothing
Like nothing had opened the door.

I kept a shirt too long,
Kept a pillow turned cold,
Kept a hundred little habits
That had nowhere left to go.

The kettle shook,
The window cried,
The bed got wide,
The whole house lied.

The phone stayed dumb,
The hall stayed dim,
My mind went looking
Where you’d been.

Time heals all wounds,
That’s what people say,
When they need grief to leave the room
And make itself behave,
Time heals all wounds,
No, time just learns the route,
Past every chair, past every drawer,
Past the ache that won’t come out.

Three in the morning still has teeth,
Still has tires on wet black stone,
Still has hands that can’t fix heaven,
Still has me not going home.

There are sounds a life remembers,
Doors, machines, a swallowed cry,
Voices keeping careful distance,
Rooms where nobody meets your eyes.

I watched hope turn thin,
Watched light go wrong,
Watched prayer lose weight
In a hallway too long.

I watched my own mind
Split at the seam,
Half stayed with you,
Half learned to breathe.

Time heals all wounds,
No, time just changes rooms,
It hangs new curtains over graves
And calls the window new,
Time heals all wounds,
No, time has softer shoes,
It doesn’t cure the place you’re gone,
It teaches grief to move.

I don’t want the wound made pretty,
I don’t want the wound made wise,
I don’t want the kind of peace
That asks your face to blur with time.

I don’t want a cleaner story,
I don’t want a lesson sewn,
I don’t want the world explaining
Why the bed should feel less alone.

Love didn’t leave
When the breathing left,
Love stayed back
And damaged the rest.

Love learned dust,
Love learned walls,
Love still answers
When nobody calls.

Time heals all wounds,
That’s what people say,
When they need pain to earn its keep
And stop blocking the way,
Time heals all wounds,
No, time just wears me down,
It sands the scream from off the blade,
Then leaves the blade around.

I still find you in the smallest places,
Not in ghosts, not in signs,
In the way my hand goes reaching
For a life beside mine.

In a joke I never send,
In a song I cannot play,
In the empty after good news,
In the silence after rain.

You should’ve seen the sky last night,
I almost said out loud,
Then the words fell through me
And hit the ground.

You should’ve heard the cat complain,
You would’ve laughed at that,
I held the moment in my mouth
Till it bit me back.

Time heals all wounds,
No, time just gets believed,
By people who can walk away
From rooms I cannot leave,
Time heals all wounds,
No, time keeps perfect count,
Of every year I carry you
Without you turning around.

Still I keep the small light on,
Not for hope, not for proof,
Just some stubborn little mercy
Still making room for you.

Still I speak inside my head,
Where nobody hears it wrong,
Still I love you past the ending,
Past the body, past the song.

Time heals all wounds,
Let that lie grow old,
Let it sit with all the clocks
That never brought you home,
Time heals all wounds,
No, time can’t close what’s true,
It only teaches broken hearts
How to keep bleeding through.

Time heals all wounds,
No, love keeps certain scars,
Some cuts become the weather,
Some dead stay where we are,
Time heals all wounds,
No, I know what time can’t do,
It never healed the wound at all,
It only made more years of you.

Something grew in Fukushima
after the sirens stopped.
Not planned.
Not rescued.
Not flown in by scientists
with clean hands and good intentions.
Planted by people
who had run out of things to try
and still had seeds.
Sunflowers.
Not because sunflowers are pretty.
Because sunflowers are hungry.
Because their roots go deep
into the worst dirt
and pull the poison out
and turn it into height
and color
and a face aimed at the sun.
They don’t purify by rejecting.
They purify by swallowing.
They take the cesium,
the strontium,
the invisible rot
that the reactor left
in every grain of soil —
and they eat it.
And they grow anyway.
That is not a metaphor.
That is what sunflowers do.
That is biology.
The most honest biology
on the periodic table:
a plant that looks at poison
and calls it lunch
and stands six feet tall
on the strength of the meal.
I knew a man
who plants them
where the ground is different.
Not reactor ground.
Human ground.
The soil someone salted
with the poison
of wanting to be gone.
He plants sunflowers
where the goodbye was.
Where the bridge was.
Where the quiet room was.
Where the bag was.
Where the almost was.
Not to fix the soil.
To prove the soil can still grow.
S.O.S.
Sunflowers Over Suicide.
Three letters
that a man named Eddielee
turned into seeds
because somebody had to
and nobody else was planting.
The sunflower doesn’t know
it’s a symbol.
The sunflower just does
what sunflowers do —
faces the light
because the stem can’t help it,
grows tall
because the roots found something to eat,
stands in the worst field
because nobody told it
the field was too damaged for standing.
Nobody told it.
That’s the whole secret.
Nobody told the sunflower
the ground was poisoned.
Nobody told it the soil was grief.
Nobody told it the dirt was a place
where someone tried to leave
and almost did.
The sunflower just grew.
Not because it was brave.
Because growing is what it does
when you put it in the ground
and the ground has anything in it at all.
Even poison.
Even grief.
Even the aftertaste
of a reactor meltdown
or a human one.
I am not a sunflower.
I am the dirt.
I am the soil
someone planted a seed in
after the sirens stopped
and the cleanup crews went home
and the cameras pointed somewhere else.
The seed was small.
A broken hip.
A bag on the road.
A sound too quiet
for anyone else to hear.
But I had dirt.
And dirt is all a seed needs.
Dirt and time
and the absence of someone
telling the seed
it shouldn’t bother.
I grew sideways for a while.
Not toward the sun.
Toward anything.
Toward the next hour.
Toward the next morning.
Toward the next small reason
to keep the roots in the ground.
And one day —
not a special day,
not a revelation day,
not a day where the music swelled
and the fog lifted clean —
one day I noticed
I was facing the sun.
Not because I chose to.
Because the stem turned
the way stems turn
when there’s light available
and the roots have found enough
to stand on.
I am not healed.
The poison is still in the dirt.
The cesium of grief,
the strontium of memory,
the invisible particles
of the worst night of my life
still embedded in the soil
I’m growing in.
But the sunflower doesn’t need clean dirt.
The sunflower needs dirt.
Any dirt.
Even this.
For Eddielee.
For the fields he plants in.
For every seed
dropped into ground
that everyone else called ruined.
S.O.S.
Not a distress call.
A planting instruction.
Put the seed in the poison.
Watch it eat what kills.
Watch it grow past the fence
everyone said was the edge.
Watch it face the sun
because nobody told it
the sun wasn’t for things like it.
Nobody told it.
Grow anyway.

He plants sunflowers
where the goodbye was.
Where the bridge was.
Where the quiet room was.
Where the bag was.
Where the almost was.
Not to fix the soil.
To prove the soil can still grow.
S.O.S.
Sunflowers Over Suicide.
Three letters
that a man named Eddielee
turned into seeds
because somebody had to
and nobody else was planting.
The sunflower doesn’t know
it’s a symbol.
The sunflower just does
what sunflowers do —
face the light