Eyes open to nothing , not a shade , not a sliver of light
Pitch black so complete I couldn't tell if I was dead or alive
Couldn't feel my body , couldn't feel the floor beneath
Just the darkness and the quiet and the absence of my breath
Then the black began to bleed , slow white creeping at the edge
Spreading like a morning I had never earned , a ledge
Dissolving into something that I couldn't find a name
White so pure it swallowed every shadow , every shame
Stood inside the white and felt a presence fill the room
Something older than the mountains , something past the tomb
Voice came with no direction , came from everywhere at once
Said son I've been expecting you , it's time to face what's done
I looked around for walls , for gates , for anything I knew
Fell onto my knees and whispered , God , is that you?
Is that you standing in the white beyond the life I lived
Every sin I ever carried , every thing I didn't give
Yeah I'm standing in the brightness with the weight of all my years
Is that you , because I got a lot of answers that I owe you , and a lot of fears
Voice said speak your life and don't you leave a moment out
Uncontrollably I started reading the story I was about
Pistol at a stranger's temple just to fill a paper plate
Didn't matter who they were or what their evening held
Took the watch , took the wallet , left them crying where they fell
Graduated from the stick up to a different kind of take
Started moving through the circles of the ones who couldn't wake
Up fast enough to see me coming with my hands inside their world
Took from mothers , took from fathers , even took from girls
Voice above me never flinched , just let me keep confessing
Every robbery I named came back without a blessing
Said continue , so I went to where the story got dark
That's when murder entered into everything I'd mark
First one was a disagreement that I couldn't let slide
Put a man into the pavement just to prove that I was live
Told myself it was the life , told myself it was the code
Fourteen more would follow down that same unraveling road
Lied to everyone who loved me , lied to cover every track
Fabricated whole identities and never once looked back
Greed became the engine that was driving every move
Hoarded everything I touched and never shared a single groove
Watched my own blood suffer while I sat on top of gold
Chose the paper over people every time the story's told
Voice above me let the silence hang before it spoke
Said you stood before my gates before , son , this ain't a joke
I offered you a different road at 18, when someone shot you with four
Every time I called your name you walked back out the door
The white began to flicker , something pulling at the floor
Felt a heat begin to rise from somewhere I couldn't ignore
Voice grew distant , not in anger , just in sorrow deep and wide
Said I loved you through it all , but justice can't be set aside
Reached my hand up toward the white but felt it pulling back
Everything above me fading , everything below me black
Not the peaceful black of sleep , not the black of rest and calm
Something breathing underneath me , something reaching up a palm
Screamed his name one final time into the disappearing light
White collapsed to nothing and the nothing swallowed night
Falling through a darkness that had texture , heat and sound
Every sin I ever buried pulling me into the ground
Robbery and murder and the greed and all the lies
Played across my vision like a film behind my eyes
Last thing that I heard before the fire filled my ears
Was a voice that said I called you , son , for forty years