[Intro] You know what's funny? I don't even own a picture of you. Just a shape where a father was supposed to be. So let me talk to the shape. Let me get this off my chest. You served everybody but the house you helped to make. [Verse 1] Served the corners, served a sentence, never served the home Charm enough to sell the winter, gone before the phone even rang twice — you was smoke, you was rumor, you was myth Showed up when it was convenient with a pocket and a gift Then you vanished like the daylight, left my mama with the bill Left her working double shifts to fill a hole that you drilled I was posted at the window for a man that never came Learned your face from other people saying I favor the same You was serving the whole city but you couldn't serve a daughter Every corner knew your name — I couldn't pick you from a lineup, honest So I stopped the waiting early, turned the ache into a blade Everything you never gave me, I went and I got it made [Hook] I did it all without you (without you) Everything you wasn't, I became (I became) They say I got your blood — but I built my own name I'm nothing like you, nothing like you, no Made it all without you, without you [Verse 2] Mama had to be the mother and the father and the wall Wore her body to the bone so I ain't want for nothing at all You taught me more by leaving than you ever could have staying Taught me never trust a charmer 'cause I learned it from the way you play 'em Taught me people show up smiling when they need a thing from you Taught me lean on my own spine 'cause a promise wasn't true Every lesson that I carry, I extracted from your absence The negative that developed me, allergic to your patterns I could smell a man like you from a city block away The kind that sells a dream at night and disappears by day So thank you for the nothing — it was scripture, it was school I built myself a fortress out the blueprint of a fool [Bridge] And I know one day you'll surface when you see me on the screen Hand out, "that's my daughter," tryna cash a memory But you wasn't there for scraped knees, wasn't there for none of it So keep your blood, keep your chin, keep the story that you run with I don't hate you — hate would mean you mattered to my day You a stranger with my features, and the strangers, they don't stay [Verse 3] I broke the thing you started, I'm the ending you ain't write Turned the fatherless to fortress, made a fortune out the fight Everything you ran away from, watch me run directly at The staying and the providing — I became the one you wasn't at They said the apple don't fall far — I fell up, I defied it Every cycle that you handed me, I studied it and fried it I keep my word like currency, I show up like a vow Everything you couldn't be, they clapping for it now So when they ask me 'bout my father, I just point them to the work I signed my own papers, made myself — from scratch, from dirt You gave me half my face and not a nickel of the rest So I owe you not a verse... except the one that says I'm blessed [Outro] So no. I don't own a picture of you. Don't need one. I know exactly what I'm not. We done here.
