Keep Coming Back

[Produced by T-K.A.S.H.]

[Verse 1]
I was just eleven years old
Pops kissed me on my head and he told me he was gone
I was half-asleep, barely awake
Disassociated state had me thinkin' it was fake
I woke up the next day to my mother and my sister in the house
A boy, a girl, a missus, no mister in the house
Everything he couldn't give her as a spouse
Manifested as behavior from us getting evicted in this house
It was off to Sacramento, Idleton to be exact
My denial as a child said, "I'm sure to see him back"
Smiled as I heard my parents needed space for a moment
Once they got it, we would pack it up and headed back to Oakland
I was hesitant to own it, but I knew it wasn't happenin'
When the days turned to years and the fact that nothin' happened
Turned my faith into tears, and my tears into pain
From the loss of a childhood I never saw again
A shame

[Verse 2]
Now at my auntie's house in Fillmore
Me and moms on my auntie's couch, I still hoped
That my father would return clean and sober
Kiss me on my head, and tell me this bad dream is over
I remember sheer embarassment
Watchin' other family members with they mothers and fathers and wonderin' where my parents went
My father never comin' back, became a parent
When I started my despair and didn't nobody care to pair with this
Traumatized, transitioned from a man good
With the son and family, to tragedy and canned goods
It wasn't fair, my father wasn't there
When I needed him and staggered my developmental manhood
So I ran the hood and hated my reflection in the mirror
'Cause I guess it wasn't worthy of affection
My complexion, at a introspection, led to second-guessin'
If I'm destined for oppression, projected adolescence
Stressin'

[Verse 3]
It's nothing worse than being a young child
With unregulated emotions allowed to run wild
Feeling like a mark 'cause I used to cry about my father being gone
And my mama being alone, a house is not a home
But a home is not a haven if the family needs a father figure and the figure's faceless
I was too afraid to face this
And replaced it with imagination
Regulated father roles to my bros, painful mitigation
It was nobody who taught me how to fight, how to read and write
Nobody who helped me with my school work at night
Looking up to nobody made me internalize
And so I ended up identifying as a nobody in life
If my father wouldn't have left, I'd probably feel a different way
But when I needed him the most, that's when my father went away
This is not a track to diss him or dismiss him, just to say
As a man, I can't help and still wish that he had prayed
And stayed