When I was nine I learned survival
Taught myself not to care
I was my single good companion
Taking my comfort there
Up in my room I planned
My conquests on my own

Never asked for a helping hand
No one would understand
I never asked the pair who fought below
Just in case they said no

Pity the child who has ambition
Knows what he wants to do
Knows that he’ll never fit the system
Others expect him to

Pity the child who knew his parents
Saw their faults
Saw their love die before his eyes
Pity the child that wise

He never asked did I cause your distress?
Just in case they said yes

When I was twelve my father moved out
Left with a whimper not with a shout
I didn’t miss him, he made it perfectly clear
I was a fool and probably queer

Fool that I was I thought this would bring
Those he had left closer together
She made her move the moment he crawled away
I was the last the woman told

She never let her bed get cold
Someone moved in, I shut my door
Someone to treat her
Just the same way as before

I took the road of least resistance
I had my game to play
I had the skill and more the hunger
Easy to get away

Pity the child with no such weapons
No defense
No escape from the ties that bind
Always a step behind
I never called to tell her all I’d done
I was only her son

Pity the child but not forever
Not if he stays that way
He can get all he ever wanted
If he’s prepared to pay

Pity instead the careless mother
What she missed
What she lost when she let me go
And I wonder, does she know

I wouldn’t call, a crazy thing to do
Just in case she said, who?