By Josh D’son

Yeah…

Year 2005, the world grew heavy on my shoulder,
I was only three, yet somehow life made me older.
They said that time would heal, but the nights kept getting colder,
I learned to carry silence long before I learned composure.

Some children inherit fortunes, some inherit family names,
I inherited a question that the years could never change.
They watched me growing taller, never noticed what remained,
A little boy inside a man, still standing in the rain.

They say a house is not a home; I learned it from the walls,
How a room can hold an echo long after footsteps fall.
How a name can fill a silence, how a shadow can stand tall,
How the smallest missing piece can make the biggest picture small.

But look how far I’ve grown,
Do you remember when I was born?
Would you recognise this face that the passing years have worn?
I’ve been talking to the darkness from the evening till the dawn,

Sending letters without addresses, hoping somewhere they belong.

Oh-five, oh-five, I keep counting passing years,
Every sunrise paints a smile, every sunset finds the tears.
They say the world keeps turning, so why am I standing still?
If time can move a mountain, why’s it never moved this hill?

Oh-five, oh-five, there’s a silence in the sky,
I’ve been searching for an answer in the stars that never reply.
Everybody says move forward, like the past is just a place,
But how do you outrun a year that’s written on your face?

I see your face at night, somewhere scattered in the skies,
And the stars become a mirror for the water in my eyes.
They say seeing is believing; I’ve been seeing through the lies,
‘Cause the things I want to witness never happen in real life.

Now I spend my whole life dodging questions dressed as care,
“Where’s your father? What’s he doing? When’s he gonna meet me there?”
I keep changing conversations, like the answers aren’t there,
But how do you make introductions when the guest is never there?

Every love begins with promises, then questions find their way,
She thinks I’m hiding something when I’ve nothing left to say.
She says, “If you really love me, why’s he always kept away?”
How do I explain a man who left before I learned to stay?

So another love goes missing, another door is closed,
Another heart mistakes my silence for a secret I chose.
I keep losing those beside me over someone I have lost,
And the absence of one person keeps arriving at a cost.

Now where are you? I’ve been questioning the ceiling,
Searching every crack for something close to what I’m feeling.
If you’re somewhere up in heaven, ask the One who holds the seasons,
Why He closed a chapter early, left the pages without meaning.

Does He know how many mornings I’ve rehearsed the words “I’m fine”?
How I’ve learned to wear a smile while the questions multiply?
Could He put Himself in shoes that never fitted me quite right?
Could He carry all these yesterdays and still sleep through the night?

I never had a choice, I never got to choose,
I was handed all the consequences, never told the rules.
They say a man has everything until he’s got nothing left to lose,
But I lost before I knew what it meant to have or lose.

You left too soon, never taught me to be strong,
So I learned to build a shelter from the things that all went wrong.
I don’t hate the sound of prayers; I’ve just waited far too long,
For an answer from a silence that keeps singing the same song.

Oh-five, oh-five, I keep counting passing years,
Every sunrise paints a smile, every sunset finds the tears.
They say the world keeps turning, so why am I standing still?
If time can move a mountain, why’s it never moved this hill?

I remember Sunday sermons speaking life beyond the grave,
Saying death was just a doorway, not the ending of the page.
I was young enough to trust it, old enough to learn to wait,
So I kept tomorrow sacred, like a promise with a date.

They taught me how to wait before they taught me how to grieve,
Drew a picture of forever, told a little boy, “Believe.”
I kept heaven in my pocket like a key beneath my sleeve,
Till I wondered if the door was ever there for me to reach.

Was forever just a word they gave a child afraid of endings?
Was the promise meant for comfort, or a truth beyond defending?
If the dead can hear the living, are these questions even sending?
Or am I writing to an address where the letters have no ending?

Is it heaven? Is it hell? Is it somewhere in between?
Are we more than flesh and bone, or just the echoes of a dream?
Do we travel separate roads beyond the places we have seen?
Could two souls be close forever, yet be worlds apart unseen?

What if I find you standing where the stars forget to shine?
What if we walk past each other on the other side of time?
Would you know the grown-up stranger with the little boy inside?
Would I know the voice that left before I learned to memorise?

Maybe death is just a doorway, maybe death is just a wall,
Maybe every road leads somewhere, maybe nowhere waits at all.
But the clock has never promised it would answer when we call,
Only that its hands keep moving till they stop for one and all.

Oh-five, oh-five, I keep counting passing years,
Every sunrise paints a smile, every sunset finds the tears.
They say the world keeps turning, so why am I standing still?
If time can move a mountain, why’s it never moved this hill?

September seventh, two thousand and five,
The calendar says it’s over, but the date is still alive.
Some days are only numbers till they cut across your life,
Some goodbyes are never spoken, yet they echo through the night.

I was three when you went missing from the chapters of my days,
Too young to understand it, old enough to feel the change.
Now the years have built a stranger with your memory in his veins,
And the child who couldn’t name it is the man who bears the pain.

I still stare up at the ceiling when the night refuses sleep,
Still find you in the constellations that the daylight cannot keep.
I have learned that scars aren’t failures, nor are promises guarantees,
Sometimes hope is just a candle burning where we cannot see.

I know the cycle: every breath is borrowed from the years,
Every laugh will find its silence, every smile will meet its tears.
We can name a thousand heavens, draw a thousand different spheres,
But no living hand can point me to the place where you appear.

So I won’t pretend to know what waits beyond the final breath,
Whether love survives the body, whether anything survives death.
I can question every answer, I can doubt what I’ve been fed,
Still believe there may be something where the living cannot tread.

And if the road divides us, if the stars don’t lead me through,
If the place beyond the ending holds a thousand different truths,
I’ll have spent my years still hoping there’s a path that leads to you,
Though the promise has no map, and I don’t know if it comes true.

They say the truth will set you free…

But some truths leave you waiting.

I know that one day I’ll leave this world.

I don’t know where I’ll go.

I don’t know where you are.

And I don’t know if we’ll recognise each other.

But somewhere between what I know and what I cannot prove…

I still believe.

I promise, Dad…

One day, I’ll see you.

Year 2005.

The year ended.

The waiting never did.