I’m trying to let it go, I’m trying to push it back, I’m trying to hold it down, desperately trying not to crack.

But then comes the voice,
In the same sequence of words,
Asking me who it’s going to hurt.
Telling me that if I want this to stop,
I have to listen and learn…

And I feel my father’s breath
In the lungs that I fight to fill,
I see that boy’s face in the dark
As my brain swells, I feel the bones snap
In his neck as he struggles to yell,
Through the blood in my eyes,
I’m watching him gasp and turn pale,
And I know that it’s time to… Chill.

But how can I make it over
The spell that I’m twisting under,
“If you were really what you claim,
You wouldn’t have let him touch her.”
But here, in my father’s skin,
I feel myself turning numb.
I’m scraping at the bottom
Of the basin of my heart,
And I feel nothing.

But my father’s philosophy
Has become my own;
If I’m not on fire,
I’m hardly at home.
If I’m not down to the wire,
I’ve got farther to go.
Love me for it all,
The rise and the fall,

Or watch me blow.