Eyes open to nothing , not a shade , not a sliver of light

Pitch black so complete I couldn't tell if I was dead or alive

Couldn't feel my body , couldn't feel the floor beneath

Just the darkness and the quiet and the absence of my breath

Then the black began to bleed , slow white creeping at the edge

Spreading like a morning I had never earned , a ledge

Dissolving into something that I couldn't find a name

White so pure it swallowed every shadow , every shame

Stood inside the white and felt a presence fill the room

Something older than the mountains , something past the tomb

Voice came with no direction , came from everywhere at once

Said son I've been expecting you , it's time to face what's done

I looked around for walls , for gates , for anything I knew

Fell onto my knees and whispered , God , is that you?

Is that you standing in the white beyond the life I lived

Every sin I ever carried , every thing I didn't give

Yeah I'm standing in the brightness with the weight of all my years

Is that you , because I got a lot of answers that I owe you , and a lot of fears

Voice said speak your life and don't you leave a moment out

Uncontrollably I started reading the story I was about

Pistol at a stranger's temple just to fill a paper plate

Didn't matter who they were or what their evening held

Took the watch , took the wallet , left them crying where they fell

Graduated from the stick up to a different kind of take

Started moving through the circles of the ones who couldn't wake

Up fast enough to see me coming with my hands inside their world

Took from mothers , took from fathers , even took from girls

Voice above me never flinched , just let me keep confessing

Every robbery I named came back without a blessing

Said continue , so I went to where the story got dark

That's when murder entered into everything I'd mark

First one was a disagreement that I couldn't let slide

Put a man into the pavement just to prove that I was live

Told myself it was the life , told myself it was the code

Fourteen more would follow down that same unraveling road

Lied to everyone who loved me , lied to cover every track

Fabricated whole identities and never once looked back

Greed became the engine that was driving every move

Hoarded everything I touched and never shared a single groove

Watched my own blood suffer while I sat on top of gold

Chose the paper over people every time the story's told

Voice above me let the silence hang before it spoke

Said you stood before my gates before , son , this ain't a joke

I offered you a different road at 18, when someone shot you with four

Every time I called your name you walked back out the door

The white began to flicker , something pulling at the floor

Felt a heat begin to rise from somewhere I couldn't ignore

Voice grew distant , not in anger , just in sorrow deep and wide

Said I loved you through it all , but justice can't be set aside

Reached my hand up toward the white but felt it pulling back

Everything above me fading , everything below me black

Not the peaceful black of sleep , not the black of rest and calm

Something breathing underneath me , something reaching up a palm

Screamed his name one final time into the disappearing light

White collapsed to nothing and the nothing swallowed night

Falling through a darkness that had texture , heat and sound

Every sin I ever buried pulling me into the ground

Robbery and murder and the greed and all the lies

Played across my vision like a film behind my eyes

Last thing that I heard before the fire filled my ears

Was a voice that said I called you , son , for forty years