Left For Dead

 

There’s a girl inside these walls

Who learned that love could bruise

A mother taught her how to ache

A father how to lose

Two families full of strangers

Who shared her blood, not pain

She begged for someone to protect her

They just looked the other way

And I still see her sometimes

In the corners of my mind

Holding pieces of a childhood

That she had to leave behind

I gave my heart to lovers

Who mistook my love for weakness

I gave my years to places

That forgot me when I needed them

I built myself from nothing

Just to watch it fall apart

Funny how the ones who leave you

Still find ways to leave their marks

I held on too long (Too long)

To people who were already gone (So wrong)

You took everything I had

And left me for dead

I screamed until the silence

Became the only thing I knew

I spent a lifetime bleeding

For people I outgrew

You left me for dead

But I’m not dead yet

There’s a ghost beneath my skin

Still waiting to be loved

She never asks for anything

She learned she wasn’t enough

I see her in the mirror

And I finally understand

She wasn’t born so broken

She was broken by their hands

Every promise turned to ashes

Every dream became a grave

And every time I lost myself

I found another way to stay

[Whispered]

Dear mother, did you ever see me?

Dear father, did you even try?

To all the blood that turned against me

I buried you while still alive

To every love that left me empty

To every door that closed on me

You never got to see the ending

Of the woman I would 

I held on too long (Too long)

To a world where I didn’t belong (So wrong)

You tried to bury who I was

And left me for dead

But somewhere in the darkness

A heartbeat still remained

And the ghost I thought was haunting me

Was the girl who took the pain

I think my ghost remembers me

The child I couldn’t save

But I don’t fear her anymore

Or the memories she gave

She reaches through the darkness

And I take her by the hand

They left us both for dead…

But here we still stand.