Intro – quiet, close mic]

I was speakin’…

I don’t think you ever heard me

I was standin’ right there, same air you breathed

Same blood in my veins, but you couldn’t see me

I would talk, words fall between the space

Like my voice had no shape, no place, no weight

Then someone else walks in, you turn your head

Every word they say lands, every sentence fed

I learned young how silence feels

When you’re present in the room but you’re not made real

I wasn’t loud, I was just me

But somehow that was too quiet to see

So I shrank, stood still, learned not to ask

How a son turns ghost in his own past

Father, I was right there

Same room, same blood, same air

You couldn’t hear me, I don’t know why

So I learned how to live without your eye

Father, I stopped knockin’ the door

When I felt like I wasn’t yours no more

But the voice you never turned toward

Built the man that stands here now, sure

I don’t carry hate, just a weight in my chest

Of questions that never got laid to rest

Was I different, wrong, too still?

Or did you just never learn how to feel?

’Cause a child don’t vanish on his own

He fades when he’s left alone

I didn’t leave — I just stepped aside

When I saw there was no space inside

But listen now, I found my sound

In the quiet place where I broke down

And every word you never heard

Turned into strength when it finally burned

I’m not shoutin’

I’m not blamin’

I just needed you to know

I was there

Father, I was right there

You might not see me, but I’m aware

I found my voice outside that door

And I don’t disappear anymore