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 girlfriends car,
it 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 me twisting out under the afternoon sky
I didn't know it then but it was 13 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 to 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 OD'd I have 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
I 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 just can't shake this hell that I made for myself,
for every other life I touch
I 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
