[Verse 1]
You were there in the doorway
Coat on
But your eyes were gone
Staring past the family photo
Like the glass was the only one
I learned to read your footsteps
Every creak a kind of prayer
Hoping you might see me
You just walked through the air
[Chorus]
You were a shadow with a last name
Sitting right at the head of the table
But you never asked me anything
Never said my stories mattered at all
You raised your voice
You never raised me
Taught me how to disappear
Now every room I enter
I still look for that empty chair
[Verse 2]
Report cards on the counter
Stacked up like unpaid bills
I practiced every sentence
Till my throat was paper-thin and still
You’d nod at some far-off memory
I wasn’t in it
I could tell
I learned to be my own witness
You just called it “being tough” and “well”
[Chorus]
You were a shadow with a last name
Sitting right at the head of the table
But you never asked me anything
Never said my stories mattered at all
You raised your voice
You never raised me
Taught me how to disappear
Now every room I enter
I still look for that empty chair
[Bridge]
I used to think I broke you
That I was just too much
Now I see the cracks were older
Than my hands could ever touch
I’m learning how to love me
In all the places you forgot
But some nights I still wake up
Answering to a voice
That never called my name a lot
[Chorus]
You were a shadow with a last name
Sitting right at the head of the table
But you never asked me anything
Never said my stories mattered at all
You raised your voice
You never raised me
Taught me how to disappear
I’m filling up the silence
But a part of me stays right there
Small and scared and waiting
In front of that empty chair