Never The Same

Verse

Seven years old on the porch in the dark

Red-blue lights paint a hole in my heart

Mama in cuffs, Daddy already gone

I learned real young how to pretend I’m strong

Couch to couch, never had my own bed

Kept my shoes by the door and my feelings half-dead

Hid in the pages where the heroes don’t leave

Whispered, “One day that’s gonna be me”

Chorus

I was born in the crack where the pain runs deep

Carried that seven-year-old boy in my sleep

But pain tells the truth, shame tells the lie

I finally spoke it and watched that kid stop cryin’

I don’t run from the hurt, I run through the flame

Turn a broke little life into a wide-open lane

Yeah the scar’s still there, but the story got changed

I tell the truth now and I’m never the same

Verse

Track was my church, spikes on my feet

Every stride said, “Boy, you ain’t beat”

Letters came thick, future looked bright

Till my knee blew out on a Saturday night

Scholarship ghosted, coaches went cold

Dream turned dust in a story retold

Warehouse nights, ice on the joint

Sittin’ in the truck wonderin’ what’s the point

Verse

Old man Ray with the keys and the mop

Found me starin’ at nothin’, told me, “Boy, don’t stop”

Said, “Write what hurts, don’t pretty it up

Let the ink bleed truth till you fill that cup”

So I wrote Mama leavin’, wrote the sound of the tear

Wrote the silence that taught me love disappears

Wrote the pop in my knee and the scream in my head

Till the page held the weight I’d been carryin’ instead

Chorus

I was born in the crack where the pain runs deep

Carried that seven-year-old boy in my sleep

But pain tells the truth, shame tells the lie

I finally spoke it and watched that kid stop cryin’

I don’t run from the hurt, I run through the flame

Turn a broke little life into a wide-open lane

Yeah the scar’s still there, but the story got changed

I tell the truth now and I’m never the same

Bridge

Sirens still flinch me, trust still feels thin

But I don’t let shame write the places I’ve been

I speak it out loud, let the room hold the weight

Watch the past lose power every time I relate

Chorus

I was born in the crack, now I walk in the light

That scared little kid finally sleeps through the night

Pain was the teacher, truth was the key

The man in the mirror finally looks like me

I don’t hide the hurt, I let it explain

How a broken-home boy learned to carry his name

Every true word is a step outta chains

I tell my real story and I’m never the same

Outro

Never the same…

Yeah, I tell the truth now

And I’m never the same.