[Intro - close lead] I told it like it happened. Let me tell you what I know now. [Verse 1] Early in the truck, daily-pay place, No sleep in my body, no room in my brain. Paperwork in front of me wouldn't sit still; Said I wasn't well, they said fill it in. Didn't get the work. Got back on the bike. Mind telling me to run, couldn't tell it why. At the time the danger felt as real as the street; Looking back, I was sick and I needed to sleep. Seven-Eleven, trying to use the phone, All that noise inside me, no safe way home. My sister pulled up when the officers came. She could see her brother through the way I behaved. [Hook - restrained melody] My sister got there first. She said my name like it was mine. Didn't have to win an argument. Didn't leave me there that night. I couldn't make the world hold still; She kept a place for me. My sister got there first. That's the part I want to keep. [Verse 2] Hospital sleep, then a different ceiling, Two weeks learning how to name what I was feeling. I hated those injections, hated being told; Hadn't understood what was taking hold. Help didn't turn me into somebody new; Gave me room to hear a thought and think it through. Now I got a place, got a page, got a beat; Some days still stop and I need to lie down. I remember what I thought when I wasn't doing well; Knowing it was illness doesn't empty out the memory. I don't owe a stranger a flawless recovery; I need enough space to keep living honestly. [Hook] My sister got there first. She said my name like it was mine. Didn't have to win an argument. Didn't leave me there that night. I couldn't make the world hold still; She kept a place for me. My sister got there first. That's the part I want to keep. [Bridge - piano, intimate voice] I wasn't a headline. I wasn't a warning. I was her brother Trying to get through that morning. [Final Hook - soft own-voice doubles] My sister got there first. I still remember coming home. Not fixed into a perfect story. Here enough to tell my own. [End]
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