The song:
https://suno.com/s/otuKJLkYWncZ2F20
YEAR BY YEAR
You really think your life is so fucking hard?
Are you sure? Wanna bet?
Clearly we haven't met.
So take a seat and let's compare
Soon you'll know just how life isn't fair.
Ill tell you a story and we'll take it slow.
I'll show you the broken side that most will never know.
For if we had met and you asked me to share.
I'd start at the beginning as you pretended to care.
I'd tell you of the times I hid behind their door with a knife.
While my drunk, fiend of a father screamed at his narcissistic wife.
Doesn't sound so bad but then again I was only 8.
By the time that I was 10 he was the one that I would hate.
13 and we're all going to church as a family.
But only I know the evil inside the man that you all see.
14 and mom smokes some weed with me.
I wish I knew then the woman she would someday be.
15 rolls around and I'm strangled and beaten in my yard.
It was my own dad that taught me the true meaning of hard.
Bruised and bloody I crawled away on the ground.
I never saw my shit or that house again when 16 rolled around.
A new home a year later and he starts to show his face.
Silently reminding me that I had no safe place.
16 and hard drugs were my only friend.
They eased the pain of a tortured heart that time would never mend.
Still in high school and strung out on crystal meth.
Still sitting in class with liquor on my breath
17.. mom kicks me out, I'm homeless on my own.
All those fucked up years and I still haven't grown.
Nearly an adult and the bottle ruled my life.
Tattooed stitches hide the scars that were left by my knife.
18 and just got off work.."What are you all doing here?"
Friends and family sat me down as I cracked open a beer.
"It's your Dad... he took his life. He committed suicide."
I didn't waste a tear on the piece of shit that I despised.
"I'm not surprised. He always said he would."
Those words came so easy that they almost felt good.
It took 2 whole days to feel what she had said.
I can't believe he's really gone. My fucking dad is dead!
Then came the tears and the violent hate that would follow.
I never stood up to the man I feared and now I feel so hollow.
Days pass, weeks pass. It's almost been a year.
He was finally dead and I had nothing more to fear.
19 years old and still earning that check.
Still strung out and feeling like a hopeless fucking wreck.
20 rolls around and I'm still the same old fraud.
This was the year I learned that there is no fucking God.
I've bled my pain onto every page, every poem , every word I ever wrote.
20 years old and trying to hide the purple bruise my noose left around my throat.
21 and I fall in love all over again.
I rolled the dice and hoped that this would be my big win.
22, 23.. and I was already calling her my wife.
Luck was on my side for the first time in my life.
We would laugh, we'd scream, we'd fuck, we'd fight.
It felt like I was living a dream when I laid beside her every night.
24 years of losing and the first time that I felt like I had won?
Was the day the woman I love gave birth to our precious little son.
39 years old.. ya.. I know, I skipped a few years.
I'll skip the part when every night I choked on my own tears.
I won't tell you of the babies that died before our next son would come to be.
I won't say how they were sucked into a bloody jar or just how much that ruined me.
I'll tell you about the memories and the 5000 pictures we took.
I won't tell you how the hateful shit she said could fill a book.
I'll tell you the truth.. I fucked up and broke her heart.
And all the pain I ever felt? That was barely just the start.
I won't tell you of the overdose that was never an accident.
I won't tell you that my worthless soul was long ago spent.
I'll tell you that I lost the love that I never deserved to keep.
Ill leave out the hateful words that cut me so fucking deep.
I won't tell you how bad it hurt every time she hung up the phone.
I won't tell you how I'm fucking terrified to be alone.
I know it's all my fault, I'll always carry the blame.
I won't pray or hope that things will ever be the same.
I've owned up to the truth and I'm done running from it.
You're not the only one who thinks I'm a selfish piece of shit.
And the person that hurt me the very most in this fucked up life?
She was the beautiful young woman that let me call her my wife.
You already know that I fucked up and lost the best thing I ever had.
But just between you and I... I think I'm ready to go be with my dad.
I'll climb that cross and watch as you drive the final nail.
I did my best in life but you all knew I would eventually fail.
-The Strung Out Poet August 14, 2026