You've taken it away,
Something adults wanted to stay.
Now we have nothing to hold,
On nights that keep us cold.
And even on some days,
They pass by in a haze.
Nothing to occupy our thoughts,
Other than the dark battles we fought,
With ourselves and with you.
The one who told us,
To stop crying when we're blue.
The one who told us,
To suck it up when we were two.
The one who told us,
Leave it all in the past.
Yet here we are,
Adulthood at last.
Though what are we supposed to tell our kids?
Treat them the same way as you did?

Tell them strangers are bad.
They didn't have friends,
Not till they was sad.
They only had friends in their mind,
Because real ones were hard to find.
Tell them strangers were bad,
And so here they could be,
Writing to friends they never had.

Tell them to always listen.
Since the beginning of time,
They’ll never know of independence.
And I'll yell at them as you did to me,
When they can't do things on their own.
I've yet to mutter a command,
So how were they supposed to know?

Tell them to always get good grades.
But is the stress levels
Worth the suicide and self-hate?

Tell them to be who I want them to be.
A doctor,
A surgeon,
Something successful,
Something I couldn't be.

Tell them it's all about the transcripts.
Perfect grades, flawless records,
Because apparently if you're flawed,
The world can't handle it.

Tell them if they ever talked back,
They’d be a disappointment.
As if the child I had,
Was a robot needing repairing.

But in time they will rebel,
And they'll try run away from their living hell.
The hell they call “home”
With people they call their own.
There they'll rot alone,
With no one to keep them warm when they're cold.
With no one to stay by their side,
With no one to help them off the noose,
Made with loneliness and things never deemed nice.

There I've played the game I know I'll lose,
Because our world’s future,
Was lost to to the noose.
So here we are playing a losing game,
With only the past to blame.
With the people who I can never name,
Who told me to behave,
Told me to to never stray away,
To never disobey,
To always to stay close by,
To never speak what's on your mind,
To never utter a complaint,
“Just stay quiet and never disarray.”
To be perfect in every way.

And although it would be nice to be perfect,
“Nice is different than good,”
No matter the effort it's not what they expect.
No matter how much I try to be what I ‘should’,
It'll never end up good.