13 Years

Woke up sweating in the sun

Sprawled across my big brother's grave

Shaking and drunk with sleep

I crawled to my feet and walked up into the shade

Of a young elm tree that must have been planted since the last

we came

Vicki, my mom, and me, cleaned the dirt

From the plaque that says his name

Walking to my girlfriend's car

Came back down on me

Yeah, I guess I fell to my knees

To keep from falling face-first into the dream

The vision that had had me twisting out under the afternoon sky

I didn't know it then

But it was thirteen years to the day he died

He held his hand in me

Like brothers we walked

Through the colorless world of an alcohol dream

I talked for hours

Trying the break through the silence

That he held over me

Then he started away, turned his head

Keep it up so you can die like me

Ever since my brother ODied

I've drifted all over from town to town to town

Every place I go it's always the same

I keep doing junk, I keep going down

My mama got religion and my sisters gave up

Man I just gave up too

I just died inside

Don't wanna die like George

Everybody says there's things to see

Everybody's pointing their fingers at me

I woke up driving

After another blackout from another bad drug

I can't shake this hell that I made for myself

For every other life I took

See my sister's son walk the line I walked

He's only sixteen

If he don't learn from my mistakes

He's gonna waste away

He's gonna die like me