Starting Over

Intro 1,2, now Part 1 Those three-plus years, I was so proud of Then I threw them all away for two Styrofoam cups The irony, everyone will think that "He lied to me" Made my sobriety so public, there's no fucking privacy If I don't talk about it then I carry a date A "08/10/08" that now has been changed And everyone that put me in some box as a saint That I never was, just a false prophet that never came And will they think that everything that I've written has all been fake? Or will I just take my slip to the grave? What the fuck are my parents gonna say? The success story that got his life together and changed And you know, what pain looks like When you tell your dad you relapsed and look at him directly into his face Deceit on your shoulders, deceivingly heavy weight Haven't seen tears like this on my girl in a while The trust that I once built has been betrayed But I'd rather live telling the truth and be judged for my mistakes Than falsely held up, given props, loved and praised I guess, I gotta get this on the page Feeling sick and helpless, lost the compass where self is I know what I've gotta do, and I can't help it One day at a time is what they tell us Now I've gotta find a way to tell them God help 'em, yeah One day at a time is what they tell us Now I've gotta find a way to tell them We fall, so hard, now we gotta get back what we lost, lost I thought you’d gone, but you were with me all along, along Part 2 And every kid that came up to me And said I was the music they listened to when they first got clean Now look at me, a couple days sober, I'm fighting demons Back of that meeting on the East Side, shaking, tweaking Hope that they don't see it, hope that no one is looking That no one recognizes that failure under that hoodie Just posted in the back with my hands crossed, shooken If they call on me I'm passin', if they talk to me I'm booking Out that door, but before, I can make it Somebody stops me and says "Are you Macklemore? Maybe this isn't the place or time, I just wanted to say that If it wasn't for 'Otherside,' I wouldn't have made it" I just looked down at the ground and say, "Thank you" She tells me she has nine months, and that she's so grateful Tears in her eyes, looking like she's gonna cry, fuck I barely got forty-eight hours, treated like I'm some wise monk I want to tell her I relapsed, but I can't I just shake her hand and tell her, "Congrats" Get back to my car, and I think I'm tripping, yeah Cause God wrote "Otherside," that pen was in my hand I'm just a flawed man, man, I fucked up Like so many others, I just never thought I would I never thought I would, didn't pick up the book Doin' it by myself didn't turn out that good Bridge If I can be an example of getting sober Then I can be an example of starting over If I can be an example of getting sober Then I can be an example of starting over We fall, so hard, now we gotta get back what we lost, lost I thought you’d gone, but you were with me all along, along Outro