American Fado

[Verse 1 - Mr. J. Medeiros]

It's forty dollars with a condom, sixty dollars without
She’s fifteen and on the streets, a harlot living out
The story of the homeless, somehow she feels it's safer
Then to go back to where home is and the man that use to rape her
Only now it's paid for, she just got to wait for
Her high to set in, her vitamin to go a day more
Wishing she could say more, but she don't know who to trust
We know her story she don't know none of us
Plus all the lawyers and the doctors she know got no respect for her
Why would they stop her when they paying to have sex with her?
And everyday she’s left with a bruise to remind her
She lost in a world where ain't nobody trying to find her
It's the effect of the brainwash to reject and blame for
The pain she injects it keeps infecting the same sore
Around this time is when I came to the door
Hoping we would be the same as before
But I was dead wrong
I knocked and saw the lock was gone and when I peaked through it
My heart broke I stood frozen in its leaked fluid
Waiting to thaw out, contemplating who to call out
Cause she’s lying on the floor lifeless
And ain’t no time to think twice cause the nature of time is
To leave you out of breath while you stuck waiting for sirens
And luck is hard to find when you a block from the hospital
And everyone your asking for help reacts hostile
She’s hardly breathing her arteries are bleeding
I hate to break your party, but somebody find a reason
Shut up and grab her feet please, I'm asking for help
The blood escaping her arms described exactly how I felt

[Hook]

This is a story of a girl who never knew her mother
Before she goes I hope she knows that someone truly loves her
And it's that love that got me starring at her heartbeat
The last man to hold her hand before her heart sleeps

[Verse 2 - Mr. J. Medeiros]

I remember when I first met her
I was the only one who fed her instead of giving her change
Never given her name she held it secret from our conversations
It's all I have of my moms and so I keep it sacred
Is what she said to me in a poem she read to me
She was only thirteen then but wrote incredibly
Regrettably that'd be the last time we talked
On our path to being friends we walked fast but it was cut short
You know the cliché, a day late plus a buck short
And with demons to pay you know she must work
I never knew how to help her but in my heart I felt her
For a year and a half I was praying shed find shelter
Then I heard about this dealer and the cards that he had dealt her
The apartment where he held her and how he started to sell her
Now what can I tell her when she’s frigid and cold
My tears fell on the bridge of her nose and mixed with the life leaving
I tried to fight the bleeding and give her another reason
She should open her eyes
But why should she hope for a guy she barely knew
To carry her through the door way of the ICU?
And yet it happened and I'll never forget that lady
Who screamed "doctor I think that mans holding your baby!"
I thought the nurse was crazy 'til she entered in
And fell to the floor as her reality has emptied him
She's been with many men but never new the love of one
And now I'm starring towards the floor at one of them
Who turns and asks me how I knew his daughter
All I knew was she was thirsty so I gave her water

[Hook]

[Outro - Renée Alston]

And when I lived and breathed
And in those moments of nothing and everything
I wanted to know there was something more than this
Something so much more than this
But the emptiness inside was bigger
Than the hope could ever be

I was a girl free to play at wonderland
Was safe enough to pray about something
Besides how to spend the day or how to let go of the night

But the monsters came and the darkness fell
And there where no more prayers
So tired out and burned out, can't seem to get out of this hole
Would like to sleep for hours and hours
Just a moment of peace
Please I'm begging for just one moment

I feel like I've seen you before
I've seen your face and known your hand
Was it you who carried me here?
You don't know even my name
The look in your eyes, the way you hold my hand
A tenderness like I have never known

In these last moments of life
These last moments of holding on and letting go
I see that it's the end of it all
But also the beginning
And that somehow I have known grace