How Could You

Lyrics

THE CYCLE YOU CHOSE [INTRO – QUIET] I remember the screaming. The yelling. The violence. A house where peace was a privilege and silence was survival. Where we learned to read a room before we learned to read a book. And you were there. You heard it too. You knew the fear of footsteps, the warning in a slammed door, the way a child's heart races when an adult starts to roar. You remember. That's what makes this so sickening. [BUILDING] Because now you're grown. You've got children of your own. And somehow, SOME FUCKING HOW, you've become the very thing you once needed protection from. The shouting. The rage. The emotional explosions. And there they stand, your children, watching, listening, learning to survive your moods. Just like we did. [EXPLOSIVE] HOW COULD YOU? After everything we went through? After every sleepless night, every pointless fight, every time we wished someone would make it right? HOW COULD YOU? Look into your child's eyes and not recognize the fear you once carried inside? You were supposed to BREAK THE CYCLE, not become another link in the chain! Not hand your children the same goddamn pain! [CONTROLLED] Don't tell me that's just how you are. Don't tell me you can't help it. Your childhood might explain your anger, BUT IT DOESN'T EXCUSE WHAT YOU DO WITH IT. Emotional intelligence isn't finding excuses for your rage. It's knowing when to walk away. It's understanding that your feelings don't give you permission to make your children afraid. Children shouldn't have to manage their parents' emotions. They shouldn't have to choose each word to prevent another explosion. They shouldn't have to become experts in your anger before they understand their own. [SOFT] I remember who you were. A child who deserved protection. And now I see an adult making another child feel that same rejection. When did your pain become permission? When did survival become tradition? When did you decide that because you endured it, your children should too? [FINAL BUILD] YOU KNOW BETTER! You know the scars. You know how those moments follow us long after childhood is gone. You call it frustration. You call it discipline. You call it a bad day. But your children? They'll call it childhood. And someday they may ask why the people meant to protect them were the people they feared most. [WHISPER] We didn't choose the homes we grew up in. We didn't choose the anger we inherited. But we can choose what we pass on. You had the chance to give them something safer. Something kinder. Something we never had. Instead, you gave them the very thing you once wished someone had saved you from. How could you?