I Lost My Child To Painkillers

(Verse 1) It started with a broken arm. A car crash. Rain. The doctor looked at the X-rays, smiled, and said you would be fine. He wrote a prescription. He never looked at me. He never said those little white pills could take my son long before they ever stopped his heart. You were seventeen. You still laughed with your whole body. You still left dirty shoes by the front door. You still had your whole life waiting. None of us knew we were already saying goodbye. (Pre-Chorus) The pain disappeared. You did not. Little by little, the boy I knew stopped coming home. (Chorus) I lost my child to painkillers. Not in one night. Not from one overdose. I lost him one tablet at a time. One refill. One lie. One sleepless night. One promise to quit. One broken promise after another. Before heroin. Before fentanyl. Before needles. Before the ambulance parked outside my house. Before strangers stood at my door asking if I knew where you were. I had already lost you. (Verse 2) When the prescriptions ended, the sickness stayed. The streets gave you what the doctors no longer would. I found burnt foil. Syringes. Empty bags. Blood on the bathroom floor. Money disappeared. Your guitar disappeared. The smile in every family photograph disappeared. You stopped looking people in the eyes. You stopped looking at yourself. Sometimes you looked straight through me, like I had never been your father. That hurt more than anything. (Pre-Chorus) People said, “Why doesn’t he just stop?” Because they never saw what withdrawal does to a human being. They never heard you crying when nobody else was awake. (Bridge) Addiction doesn’t only destroy the person using. It tears through everyone who loves them. It steals sleep. It steals trust. It steals birthdays. Christmas. Laughter. Hope. Until a family no longer recognizes itself. (Final Chorus) If you die before I do… People will tell me time heals. They will tell me to move on. They will tell me you made your own choices. They are wrong. You will always be the little boy whose hand fit inside mine. I still leave the porch light on. Not because I believe miracles happen every day. But because if you ever find your way back… I never want you to wonder if someone was still waiting. I am. I always will be.