Bitter Leaf

[Verse 1]
The blue light of the screen at 3:18 AM.
Found that shot from Belle Isle, before the rot set in.
Your arm around her, that August Michigan grin.
Seven Junes ago, the streetlight on Trumbull made her new watch gleam,
And I saw it all, a ghost in the passenger beam.

[Chorus]
The bitter leaf I let you eat
Was my own silence, my defeat.
And I'm not sorry, I'm just mad
At the good brother you never had.

[Verse 2]
The day you moved your things out, the air was sharp with thaw.
You never asked me, just broke beneath some heavier law.
I remember the wedding, the whiskey burn on my tongue.
"'You're my brother,' you said, 'we've only just begun.'"

[Chorus]
The bitter leaf I let you eat
Was my own silence, my defeat.
And I'm not sorry, I'm just mad
At the good brother you never had.

[Bridge]
Some poisons just stain the cambium deep.
Some promises are roots too hard to keep.
And all that’s left is this coat of settled dust
On a friendship corroded by a coward's rust.

[Outro]
Yeah, I saw it all that night.
Beneath the sodium light.