Red Dirt HIll

[Verse 1 – Ohio, slipping but not gone yet]

Back roads, headlights, I was fifteen
Stumblin’ home like a ghost they’d seen
Gravel drive and I hit the ground
Woke up cold with no one around

2AM and I crept inside
Tried to hide what I couldn’t hide
She just said, “You still go to school”
No yelling… that made it cruel

Waterbed and a spinning room
Hit the edge and I sealed my doom
Sick on sheets, couldn’t stand the shame
Still woke up and went anyway

[Verse 2 – people trying to stop me]

Showed up drunk at her mama’s place
She saw it written all on my face
Didn’t yell, didn’t slam the door
Just dragged me straight to the bathroom floor

Cold water runnin’ down my head
Tryna wake up what wasn’t dead
Hands on me, sayin’ “this ain’t you”
But I was already slippin’ through

[Pre-Chorus]

Then everything changed without a sound
Life I knew got pulled from the ground

[Chorus]

Packed it up, left it all behind
Pieces of me I couldn’t find
Alabama never felt like home
Just a place where I stayed gone

[Verse 3]

Cancer took her piece by piece
I took shots just to find release
Every night was a blur of sound
Didn’t care if I burned it down

Dropped out young at sixteen years
Drownin’ days and erasin’ fears
Astro van and an open road
Nowhere left but a heavy load

[Bridge – everything collapses]

They were callin’, I didn’t go
Couldn’t face what I’d come to know
All that time I just ran away
Now there’s nothin’ left to say

[Final Section – the hill]

Red dirt hill, I sat alone
Watched them carry my mother home
Didn’t move, didn’t make a sound
Just let the silence pin me down

No goodbye, couldn’t cross that line
Too ashamed of the life I’d find
All that noise, all that reckless thrill…
Meant nothin’ on that red dirt hill