Howards Tale

I feel that it's a mixture of everyone's thoughts. "Age 5, just a little boy shy Is he ready for the big surprise He'll be playing lego in a dream When the shadows come to life" There I think he's waiting for a surprise from someone and in his sleep he gets it. Sexual abuse when he was a child. "Age 9 and he should've been fine With a secret he's sure to keep Two times had to tell a little lie For the sake of him and me Now it's over I need closure" Here I think he's hiding what's been going on and he feels that he'll lose his friends if they knew. "Hey, look what you did to me When you were taking me home Getting me stoned Leave me alone I waited for mom to comfort me But when I opened my mouth Don't say nothing, shhh" I think that here, someone got him into drugs because they wanted to sexually abuse him and he's begging to be left alone and when his mother comforts him, she tells him not to speak of it or doesn't want to here it. "Age 12 and it isn't going well Now it's 3 years to the day Confused, but unlike you This feeling won't go away" Here he might have been released from the abuse but the scarres of it still haunts him. "16 and the woman down the street Has invited him to come inside The first time, it didn't feel right It'll be the last time he tries" Here they may be talking about him going to someone's house and has sex with her and it didn't feel right and he's tramatized by the abuse. And he's not going to do this again. And when the "I won't say" verses came it, he's not telling anyone about this problem that's haunting him. "17, all he's ever seen Is the living in between the lies It's kind of funny how a mind Can keep living in denial" He's growing up more and his life is filled with nothing but lies and he's denying his past and he's also denying his sexuality or how he feels. Also that his mother is denying what has been going on to her son. "18 is a very strange scene He's still playing with the past Expelled, maybe someone could've helped If someone had known to ask" He was lost in his past and he got himself kicked out of school or kicked out of his house or his click of friends. And now he's lost because no one asked or went to help him. "19 and he's innocently Parked right beside a school He stares at a boy sitting there And the boy stares at him too He walks over He needs closure" Here there could be several meanings. One could be that he's going over to rape him as revenge, molest him or something. Possibly even to ask him out or sell him drugs or maybe to tell him what happen to him so the burden would roll off his shoulders but I feel that he's going over to talk to him because the boy had been through the same thing as him and he wants to help the boy when no one helped him and he wanted to save the boy from the cycle. But for all we know, Howard was just repeating the cycle over.

But this song is very sad and it's very deep. I just keep listening to it overr and over and everytime this came out in my mind. Sick Puppies did a great job with this song.