“Thursday Lights” [Verse 1] Thursdays were our day together Tuna fish sandwiches at the table Cold gold Pepsi cans sweating circles Beside the ashtray by the sink You called me “baby,” I believed you Like love and safety were the same thing Cartoons flickering through the living room Back before I knew too much [Verse 2] Little girls can make a heaven Out of scraps and tiny kindness Never seeing all the damage Waiting somewhere out of sight And I still taste those cheap sodas Still hear Motown through the walls Still remember wanting so badly To believe you loved us all [Chorus] I don’t know how to miss you Without remembering it all I don’t know how to miss you Without remembering your words How the hands that used to hold me Could let so much hurt go on But I became the fucking firewall And this pain dies where I stand [Verse 3] Everybody paints the dead softer Like the truth should die with them But I watched my mother breaking While the silence filled the room Maybe pain was all you came from Maybe cruelty raised you too But bittersweet memories couldn’t fix you And love alone could not break through [Pre-Chorus] So I hold the people closest Like they’re something I could lose I say sorry when I hurt them I don’t sharpen love to wounds And I love my mother enough for both of us Enough to finally tell the truth Enough to build a life from kindness Instead of surviving what you do [Bridge] Pain is not a family business And I quit that job with honor Left the keys there on the counter Watched the whole damn pattern drown I laid every curse down gently At the feet of something better And every child who comes after me Will never carry this weather [Final Chorus] I don’t know how to miss you Without remembering it all I don’t know how to miss you Without hearing your voice crawl Through every guilty little memory Through every kindness wrapped in hurt But I became the fucking firewall And I will give this pain no heirs Yeah, Thursdays were our day together Cold gold cans and kitchen light And somewhere deep inside me still A little girl says every night: “Speak to the angels, Noni.”
