All I got in this world is this pen in my hand
The inked note on back of my hand
Reminding me again of what a loser I am
Gotta home to unlock the door to
Watch my autistic little brother
Play computer games on the floor
Tend to his needs and my own
And do no more

I never wanted to be ripped away from my life
But for my mother and brother
I felt I had to make the sacrifice
Of everything I've ever known, give up my love for my home
That I didn't even know existed till it was long gone
But it's too late to go back now
So now?

Now I'm sitting here with no friends,
No place to go
Nothing to do,
No songs to sing and dance to
No boys to talk on the phone with
Romancing and laughing and teasing
Growing up to

To what?
I am now
At home all alone
I got my suicidal older brother on the other line of this phone
Eight Hundred miles away and I can't help but feel hopeless
That all this is my fault
Maybe if I never left things would have been different
Oh how I just want to go home

Now my best friend is whining in my ear
About how her family hates her and she wants to "get out of here"
Yeah I wanted to get out too
I got out, and what to?

I tried to escape the pain and the fear of growing up all alone
Taking care of myself and my little brother while we were getting hit at home
Our parents fought all the time until
My mother stepped out of denial
To face the bruises on my arms and legs,
To deal with the tears and anguish of her seven year old child

My dad faced jail time, but he's still in denial
Us kids encountered the effects of divorce
We were torn from our mother, month after month
Brainwashed to hate each parent as we went back and fourth
My older brother got violent and crazy
I don't even know who he is anymore
Yet

We had one place where we got along
Our friends brought us together on our street
Where we all grew up together like brothers,
Our one escape
They say you can't trace happiness from place to place

This "neighborhood" was a new thing
No more drug dealers, train tracks and shootings
We became Shinnecock kids for short
Long summer days flew by too quick
Playing manhunt and kick ball and lighting fires in the street
Where we sat contemplating our problems
Like how we got beaten and teased and there's nothing to eat
At home?

That place
Where no one cares and I feel so alone
My dad's got aids and my grandma's got cancer
My girlfriend left me for other dude
Oh how I loved her
Talking about all this and running around like kids
The kids we never got to be
We all grew up too fast
We had a second chance to be kids and just be us,
Happy

And now what?
I left all that
I wanted to escape the past
So I agreed to leave
Everything I ever had

And now what?
I'm growing up in the middle of nowhere with no one
No one's here, I don't have any fun
I'm stuck at "home" with all this responsibility
Mom's trying to "make up for lost time"
But she's never heard of the word priority
Lost time?
You're wasting mine

How long will this last
I must remain optimistic about right now
While trying to get over the past
But still I'm expected to piece together a better life for myself
At 15 I just wanna be me not somebody else

These kids here don't get me
I wanna go home, to the ocean and stuffed animals on my shelf
Where I'm not judged,
By the clothes on my back
By the courage I've lost
Judged not, by the words that stir in my mind
But by my voice that never speaks
Judged by the lack of drugs entering MY mouth
Judged because I'm stuck in this shell that hardly cracks
Judged by the way I give up and refuse to fight back
Against this person I'm turning into

I just need to know myself and be me
Comfortable and outgoing like I used to be
Not letting anything get to me,
Handing out advice like free candy
On Halloween, which by the way
USED to be my favorite holiday

I was the rock for my friends and family
Who I loved and cherished dearly
This is who I really am when I feel at home
With the sunsets and the beautiful blue sea
That stretches out as far as my sparkling green eyes can see

I want to go home where
I know every blade of grass in my backyard
I know every street sign, every store, every face that I see
I'm not invisible, everyone can actually see me

This is hard and I'm trying
Trying to move on, to get by
But I can't stop crying
Everyday there's other crisis at home
I'm still trying to deal with the past yet
There's too much going on in my life right now
I'm forced to live a life and a dream a dream
That doesn't belong to me

It seems no one else wants to move on
Instead we'll keep these thoughts in our heads
We'll focus on the past and the memories we had
Focus on the how we'll make the future greater than great,
Because the right now is just too bad.