Ashes In My Hands

You ever get so angry…

you stop recognizing your own reflection?

Yeah…

This for the ones drowning in silence.

⸻

Sixteen with a hole in my chest

Daddy gone late, mama stressed

House full of yelling, walls paper thin

Learned real quick how to lock rage in

Every night heard glass hit floors

Swore I’d never become like before

But pain grows roots when it lives too long

Turns boys into storms they can’t outrun

Black hoodie walking school hallways

Fake smile hiding darker days

Inside I was rust and smoke

One bad word and my whole soul broke

Started punching holes through bedroom doors

Hands bleeding out on hardwood floors

Then I’d stare in mirrors cracked

Like, “Who the hell keeps staring back?”

⸻

Rage don’t scream when it first arrives

It whispers low and eats your mind

Turns heartbreak into gasoline

Till all that’s left is burning dreams

⸻

I lost myself in blacked-out nights

Shattered glass and neon lights

Every scar got a tale to tell

Every bad choice dragged me to hell

And the sadness pulled me deep

Now the demons know my name in sleep

I was fighting the world…

But really just fighting me

⸻

Twenty-two with bloodshot eyes

Flying down highways past midnight

Hands on the wheel, heart full of hate

Thinking maybe I won’t see the next day

Friends said, “Bro, you changed these days”

Truth is pain made me hard to save

Started drinking till my voice went numb

Started loving all the damage done

Girl cried tears in passenger seats

Said, “I miss who you used to be”

But I couldn’t hear through the static

Mind gone dark, soul dramatic

One night turned to flashing lights

Blue and red under storm-filled skies

Swung on somebody I barely knew

Cause my anger needed fuel

Then silence hit in a holding cell

Cold steel bench and the smell of hell

That’s when the mirror finally cracked

And I saw the monster staring back

⸻

You feed the rage…

The rage feeds you…

Till there’s nothing left

But smoke…

And echoes…

⸻

Now I walk with ghosts through memory lanes

Every face I hurt stitched in my brain

Mama getting older, son watching me

Praying I become what I need to be

Cause anger ain’t strength, it’s a loaded gun

And sadness don’t care who you become

It hollows your chest till your soul caves in

Then convinces you darkness your friend

So if you hear this while your world burns down

And you’re one bad night from losing ground

Take it from me — rage steals lives

Slowly… piece by piece at a time

⸻

I lost myself in blacked-out nights

Broken homes and bar-fight lights

Every scar got a story to bleed

Every memory planted another seed

And the sadness still calls my name

Like wildfire dancing through rain

I was fighting the world…

But really just fighting me

⸻

The hardest war…

ain’t against another person.

It’s against the version of yourself

pain turns you into.