The Absence Songtext
von Meadows

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, 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 the stories that he told
I never 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, "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
And 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."