[Intro - Guitar arpeggio, distant siren echo] This is Blackstone — one name on everyone's lips, Mikey wasted once, now walking Redemption Road. [Verse 1] Parties every night, a different girl at dawn, Clubs and hotels, trap-house lights till the morn. Slanging weight for thirty packs, pockets full of drip, Seventeen with thirty men's scars, a Viking with a whip. Worcester house stamped memories into my hands, They told the county stories — how I burned those lands. Empty bottles in the motel sink, lipstick on the glass, Rooftop bets, fast rides, praying I could make it last. [Pre-Chorus - gentle electric piano, building] I shed the coat of chaos, traded chaos for a key, Learned to fold the sheets at dawn, listen to the kettle's plea. I had to burn the old maps to find the road that led to me. [Chorus 1 - soaring guitars] Bleeding throat, I rode the night — I chased the light I couldn't hold, I was Mikey wasted, legend bold, a story told in cold. Now the chorus of my life is softer, small and brave — I show up, I fix the leak, I keep the promises I save. [Verse 2] I miss the 1st Ave neon, the way those crowds would roar, But mornings with my children beat the flash and the encore. My wife-to-be doesn't believe the stories she hears, "He’s the most boring person I know," she says when praise appears. If only she could meet the ghost that taught me how to fall, She might still like the boy who smashed the windows of his walls. But that man was headed for a grave, a bed with nowhere left to stand, So I swapped the blade for bedtime songs and learned to be a man. [Pre-Chorus - guitar-driven, rawer] I had to shed the old me — those fingerprints became my proof, The scars like passport stamps that showed me how to move. I fold the laundry slowly now, hum a hymn while stirring stew, Those rooftops taught me flight; these mornings taught me truth. [Chorus 2 - more urgent, darker tones] Doctors said I wouldn’t last a year beneath the hospital light, They watched me spit blood on tiles and chart the fading fight. Worcester bars, cell dates, motel sinks with names erased, I thought the old me was a king — a Viking crown misplaced. [Verse 3 - quiet, intimate, hospital room imagery] White lights humming over plastic sheets, a nurse with tired eyes, They told me odds and sentences while I counted my goodbyes. Bleeding in my throat, the taste of metal, whiskey and regret, A child's photograph in a wallet made the room a safer set. Doctor’s words like verdict gavel: "You won't make a year." I felt the funeral's itinerary drawn up in every fear. The detox cot, the needle's promise, the cold IV like a rope, I chose the slow return to dawn instead of sliding down to slope. A nurse put a blanket on me, a tiny hand pressed on the glass — That face I almost missed became the reason I would last. [Bridge - instrumental swell, then stripped back to voice & acoustic] From slanging weight to changing fate, I paid in sleepless dues, From bottles on a motel sink to t