

Prompt / Lyrics
I still say your name in my head. Not because I forget you’re gone, but because I forget I’m supposed to stop. I want you to know something first. Before anything else. Before the questions people ask. Before the way they lower their voices. I know you were trying. I know how tired you were. I know the weight wasn’t weakness. It was too much pain carried for too long without enough relief. I don’t replay every moment. I don’t punish myself with what ifs. I know how deeply you felt things. I know how hard you fought to stay. They talk about overdose like it explains you. It doesn’t. It explains a moment. It doesn’t explain a life. You were my son before the struggle. You were my son during it. You are my son now. That didn’t change when your breathing stopped. Some days I can move through the world. Some days I sit still and let the grief come. Grief isn’t a failure to heal. It’s love with nowhere to land. I don’t need answers anymore. I don’t need reasons. I need you remembered correctly. You were not careless. You were not weak. You were human in a world that didn’t know how to hold you gently enough. If I could have carried the pain for you, I would have. I would have done it quietly and never asked to be thanked. I don’t know what comes after this life. I don’t need it explained. I just need you to know that you were never a burden. Not once. I am still your mother. I say it out loud. I say it when the room goes silent. I say it when people don’t know what to do with my grief. I will keep saying it. You were loved while you were here. You are loved now. And nothing — not death, not addiction, not silence — took that from us. I’m still here. I’m still loving you. And I always will.
Tags
Spoken-word grief piece — minimal piano or ambient pads, slow tempo, intimate female voice, raw stillness, reverent
4:02
No
12/26/2025