THE CIGARETTE ROOM Erased My Name Down in the basement, beneath the grocery store We kept the archives of the life we built before In that locked tobacco room, the papers held our time Old photographs and memories, everything that once was mine In twenty-fifteen, I finally walked away From the heavy hands, the anger and the games they played I thought I'd left the darkness somewhere far behind But they kept rewriting history, one memory at a time You can burn the paper You can tear the photographs You can lock away the memories But you can't erase the past You erased my name from the family wall Took down my pictures from the hallway Cut me out of the story, cut me from the stone Left my father in the shadows, growing old and alone You built a wall of silence, a prison made of ink But you can't overwrite the blood No matter what you think He's sitting in the garden, staring through the haze A fighter lost somewhere inside a fading maze He doesn't know the battles being fought in his name Doesn't know the numbers, doesn't understand the game He looks across the room and asks, “Do we have a lawyer now?” As if the answer might explain what he can't remember how The independent eyes were gone, the outside light was closed While things were moving quietly behind the doors You can call it family You can call it care You can hide behind a thousand words And pretend that no one's there You erased my name from the family wall Took down my pictures from the hallway Cut me out of the story, cut me from the stone Left my father in the shadows, growing old and alone You built a wall of silence, a prison made of ink But you can't overwrite the blood No matter what you think Then came the blue lights And the walls closed in They called my voice a danger When I was fighting to be heard They wrapped my debts around me Like a rope around my throat While somewhere behind the curtains The old accounts kept moving on But I know what fading minds look like I've seen the fear behind their eyes I've watched people lose their memories While the world keeps telling them they're fine And at the end of the courtroom He looked at me and said so low: “Are you coming to say goodbye?” And something inside me broke. You erased my name from the family wall But you couldn't erase me after all You took down the pictures You tried to bury the past But every broken piece of it Was built to last You built a wall of silence You locked the memories away But blood remembers footsteps Even when the mind can't say I looked him in the eyes Beneath the courthouse light I said, “I'm here. I'm not leaving you tonight.” He nodded in the silence And for a moment, I knew Behind all the fading memories There was still a part of him That knew me too They can burn the archives They can tear down every wall They can lock the garden gate And pretend I never called But they can't erase my story. They can't erase my name. I walked out of the darkness And I carried back the flame. The truth is screaming now.
