there's no one to call
The phone sitting on the counter
calls to me but doesn’t ring
I’m the one who ran away
so I guess I shouldn’t expect it to
The poor man’s comfort is my therapy
brown liquor over rocks
and the bartender’s offhand
‘You just can’t choose your family’
Well they sure didn’t choose me, I reply
the version they couldn’t change
But I get it
it’s not really news
we’re all unhealthy
everyone has daddy issues
and distant mothers
who never really liked us
maybe loved
but that was never enough
Fathers who drank
and now we do too
Our spirits grew
in a broken state
As they told us again and again
we’re doing this for you
you can be anything you want
except yourself and free
and those of us who would die if we stayed
we leave
and look back once or twice
long enough to be reminded
that we’re not really welcome back
we’re different now and we don’t fit
well really, we never did
but there wasn’t a name for it then
Was it selfish?
Did I give up too quickly?
The dark is filled with questions
in the lonely times
when we see the happy ones
the together ones
But as alone as we are
we’ve gotten too old to blame
the fathers that drank
the mothers that shamed
me, I pick up my drink
and put down the phone
there’s no one to call
when there’s nobody home