When she was a little girl, she tried to be happy in spite of everything going on around her.

Daddy screaming. Mommy crying. The fighting. The weird things going on at school. Her tummy always hurt, and mommy got angry because she always left school early. But still, she kept on trying to be happy.

Then she move away. Mommy and daddy still fought. Her step-dad hated her. But weird things mostly stopped at the new school, so she was happy.

Some days she would wear the biggest smile on her face, even when she was doing something as stressful as taking a test. The other kids didn't like it.

why are you always smiling? they asked.

They didn't like it when she said, because I'm happy!

As the years went on, people found all sorts of ways to make her smile go away. Bullying, backstabbing, touching where they shouldn't have.

By the time she reached 5th grade, she was a neurotic mess. Nobody in her life cared. They just saw her outbursts as begging for attention or an excuse to get out of chores.

She needed help. She needed parents whose heads weren't shoved so far up their asses or who weren't so preoccupied with their partner that they could have seen the signs that there was something wrong. Behavioral issues don't arrise when the home is stable and loving and safe. Little girls don't inherently distrust every man they meet to the point of begging their mothers to make sure they always has a female doctor. Children don't lock themselves away and refuse to take part in the world if they felt the world was safe or they had someone by their side to guide them through it.

This song feels like what it's like to grow up recognizing how fucked up it all was, trying to grow from it, and just hitting a wall because there is no closure.