Black Sheep

In the glow of the family firelight

I’m the shadow that lingers just out of sight

They raise their glasses to the straight and true

While my map is drawn in lines only I drew

They ask if I’m lost, if I wandered too far

But their green pasture feels colder than stars

Every holiday the questions fall like rain

“Why can’t you be normal? You’re causing us pain”

I smile through the sting, but the words leave a mark

While I carry the secrets I keep in the dark

I’m the black sheep, yeah, the one they don’t claim

The rebel, the dreamer who won’t play their game

My wool may be dark, but it keeps me warm

Through the winters of judgment and family storms

You see the odd one out, the crack in the frame

But I’m painting my masterpiece all the same

Black sheep… black sheep…

I’m learning to love the skin that I’m in

Cousins with white fences and matching rings

I’m still chasing horizons on tattered wings

They measure a life in mortgages and degrees

While I measure mine in the songs that set me free

Daddy shakes his head at the ink on my skin

Says “Son, when you gonna fit in?”

But every line tells a battle I won

Against the weight of “you should be someone”

And some nights I still hear the echo of their sighs

The family portrait never quite looked right

With me standing there in my own kind of light

I’m the black sheep…

I used to pray I’d wake up and finally belong

That my different heart wasn’t somehow wrong

That the love they gave didn’t come with a cost

Of hiding the pieces of me I loved the most

I still flinch when they say “we’re all the same”

Because I spent years trying to kill my own name

Some nights I still feel that little kid cry

For the seat at the table without having to change

For the right to be loved without feeling strange

Now the mirror shows lines from the years of the fight

But also the fire that refused to stay quiet

I still replay the dinners where I ate my own words

The empty chair beside me that somehow still hurts

The photos they post where my face isn’t there

Like I was a ghost who was never quite there

And I love them, God knows I still love them so deep

But the ache of their silence is the wound that I keep

[Final Chorus – bigger, with ad-libs & extra emotion] I’m the black sheep, and sometimes it breaks me But I won’t let it take what’s left of me You see the odd one out, the crack in the frame But I’m still painting through the pouring rain Black sheep… black sheep… Still loving you from the outside in Even when the door feels locked from within Black sheep… black sheep I’m learning to love the skin that I’m in (And it hurts… but I’m still here…)[Extended Outro – soft, fading, almost spoken/sung with tears in the voice]Black sheep… Yeah, I’m the black sheep…But my heart still beats for the family I miss And the version of me they could never quite kiss Black sheep…I’m the black sheep…And I finally feel like I belong to me….Even if they never