Failing to play nice

he says "daddy loves me some
but momma loves me all"
sometimes it takes him days
to act his usual way
when he's back at her place

he says "can we move to Chicago?
I promise I won't cry"
she says he'll miss his dad
but he says he won't be sad
a blank expression on his face

and how could she have seen this
when she was twenty one
nobody said a word
and even if she'd heard
no matter what they'd said
she'd have kept and made his bed
for as long as she could stand
'cuz it wasn't in her hands
and three is twice the price
for failing to play nice

and back in 1980
was the story just the same
when they sat me on the stairs
and asked me if I cared
that my dad was soon to go

my brother can't remember
how he would get confused
about why we'd go to spend
every first and third weekend
with a man he didn't know

and then came the succession
of more unwanted men
and I made it my task
to tear away their masks
'cuz the way they'd dupe my mom
with money and aplomb
I just wish I'd been a man
but I had such little hands
and still I played the price
for failing to play nice