[Intro – spoken, close-mic]
You don’t raise your voice.
You raise a story.
And you rewrite me until I apologize for bleeding.

[Verse 1]
He shakes my hand like a judge in a robe,
Smiles like mercy, talks like a sermon in code.
“Little brother, you’re sensitive—listen to me,”
Then he edits the past like it’s public property.
He names my grief like a flaw in my spine,
Calls it “drama,” calls it “time to align.”
Meanwhile I’m twenty-one, stuck in the blast—
Parental war, and a child turned past.
A wounded healer, trained to make peace,
Taking blame like a sacrament, begging it cease.

[Pre-Chorus]
He doesn’t punch—he polishes the blade,
Says “I’m proud of you” while the cut’s being made.
And I stare at the mirror he holds in my face—
A reflection with bruises I can’t quite erase.

[Chorus]
It’s a knife in my heart and a knife in my back,
And a pocketful of hundreds so I won’t call it that.
He hugs me tight like the pastor of pain,
Whispers “I love you,” then rewrites my name.
He buys forgiveness in crisp little sheets,
Calls it “help,” while he sweeps my feet.
Hundred-dollar halo, saint with a grin—
He keeps me alive just to punish the skin.

[Verse 2]
He talks about his daughter like a trophy in glass,
Like proof he’s the hero and I’m the collapse.
Goes silent a week, then he calls for my hand,
Needs my empathy like oxygen, needs me to stand
In the shadow of his success and his “good-guy” disguise,
While he measures my worth by the tears in my eyes.
“Want my advice?” like it’s holy and clean—
From a man who made war in the space in between.
And I haven’t heard my own child laugh in eighteen years,
But he wants me applauding his father-of-the-year.

[Pre-Chorus]
He doesn’t rage—he suggests I’m insane,
Turns my memories into an undecided case.
Then he kneels with a gift like a vow he can cite,
While he sharpens the truth in the dark of the night.

[Chorus]
It’s a knife in my heart and a knife in my back,
And a pocketful of hundreds so I won’t call it that.
He hugs me tight like the pastor of pain,
Whispers “I love you,” then rewrites my name.
He buys forgiveness in crisp little sheets,
Calls it “help,” while he sweeps my feet.
Hundred-dollar halo, saint with a grin—
He keeps me alive just to punish the skin.

[Bridge]
I was a mirror with a pulse, I was a chapel for his shame,
I held his storms and called them weather, I held his cruelty and named
It “stress,” “success,” “a hard day,” “a misunderstood man”—
While my own life stayed orphaned inside my own hands.
And every time I tried to speak, he’d tilt the room, adjust the light:
“Look how much I’ve done for you.”
Like mercy’s measured by the size of what you hide.

(half-sung, escalating)
He wants my gratitude to be my cage.
He wants my softness to be his stage.
He wants my healing to make him whole,
And my silence to absolve his soul.

[Final Chorus – bigger, breaking]
It’s a knife in my heart and a knife in my back,
And a pocketful of hundreds so I swallow the fact
That love shouldn’t feel like a loan with a leash,
Like a “blessing” that tightens every time I breathe.
Hundred-dollar halo, pious and cruel—
A rich man’s kindness is a sharpened tool.
And I’m done being mirrored, done being the proof—
I’m not your reflection. I’m the truth.

[Outro – spoken, calm]
Keep the money.
Keep the story.
I’m taking my mind back.