Setting the record straight about Don.

I didn't get a chance to choose
I didn't have a say
Either when my father left us
Or you took my Mom away

I remember being happy
You always looked so mad
I was frightened when Mom told me
That you'd be my new Dad

It was plain from the beginning
That you weren't fond of me
I did my best to understand
But I was only three

It wasn't very long before
You had yourself a son
The day that Scott was born I knew
He was the chosen one

At first you tried hard to pretend
We were a family
You couldn't even recognize
What everyone could see

I was nearly seven-years-old
By the time she came along
Your daughter, Lolly, taught me well
I never would belong

You often called me crazy
You said that I was dumb
You called me lots of rotten things
You never called me "son"

Now you're an old and feeble man
Your conscience craves relief
You reinvent the past whereby
You steal just like a thief

With hubris and contempt you claim
There was never any difference

I recall the time you made me
Sit until half-past eight
In that old kitchen choking down
Cold limas on my plate

Your daughter moaned and whined and
squealed
Cried like a spoiled brat
Because the sirloin steak Mom served
Contained a speck of fat

Today you like to tell yourself
There was never any difference

You must have thought that I'd forget
Those whippings with your belt
But never on your own kids did
You ever place a welt

How can you stubbornly proclaim
There was never any difference?

Five-thirty in the afternoon
Would find me gripped with fear
You came home quite predictably
With your six-pack of cheap beer

In my bedroom or the basement
I hid myself from sight
Hoping to avoid another
Loud and violent fight

At seventeen I took a job
In a restaurant with a bar
I earned and saved the money
For insurance and a car

When the real kids learned to drive
You rescued them again
You paid their way and coddled them
I was long gone by then

I'll shout it to the mountains
I'll sing it in a song
Record it in a manuscript
That your account is wrong

If you were an honest man
If you had any sense
You'd face the truth and then confess
There always was a difference