Grown up at 7

Peyton,

I know you been carrying weight on them little shoulders since you was a kid. Mama out in them streets,

chasing a high and a dollar, never really knowing where y’all was gonna sleep next. You learned real early how to be quiet,

how to stay out the way, how to pretend you wasn’t scared when the lights got cut off or when strange voices came through the door.

(Chorus)

It’s so hard being a little girl in this world, taking on things in my life, that I shouldn’t even know about , but even for this little girl, I feel like I’m taking on the world

That ain’t childhood, that’s survival, and you did it all by yourself most nights.

And then there was your daddy, walking around like life was picture‑perfect,

smiling for people that didn’t know the truth.

Moving from place to place, always running from something,

acting like y’all was just “starting fresh” again. But you knew better.

You saw the lies in his eyes, felt the floor shake every time the truth got close.

You didn’t have friends over, didn’t have sleepovers, didn’t have nobody to really call your own.

Just you, your thoughts, and four walls that changed every few months.

You missed out on a lot, Peyton.

The birthday parties, the school trips,

the simple stuff like coming home to the same house every day.

You learned to pack fast, to not get attached, to never trust that “we’re staying this time.”

You watched other kids laugh on the playground while you sat on the side,

wondering what it felt like to not be worried all the time.

That kind of lonely cuts deep, and it don’t just disappear.

But listen—your story didn’t stop there.

One day, mama decided she was done being broken.

She got clean.

She fought them demons for real this time. Slowly,

you started to see a different woman standing in front of you.

Not the one nodding off, not the one disappearing for days,

but a mama who showed up, stayed sober, and looked you in the eyes like you mattered more than anything. And you did.

Now you’re getting a taste of the life you should’ve had all along.

A bed that’s yours. A home that don’t move every few months. A mama who remembers your favorite food,

who asks how your day was and actually listens. It don’t erase what you went through, and it don’t fix every scar, but it means you’re not walking this road alone anymore.

You got someone in your corner now, for real.

So yeah, your childhood was stolen in a lot of ways. You had to grow up too fast, see too much, feel too heavy.

But don’t get it twisted: you’re not broken, you’re built different.

All that pain turned into strength, all that silence turned into understanding. You know how to survive,

but now you’re learning how to live. And as long as mama keeps choosing the right path and you keep choosing yourself,

your story don’t end in the dark. It ends with you standing in the light,

knowing you made it through what was meant to crush you—and you’re still here, heart beating, future wide open.