Dear Mom and Dad   Here's why I can't home   I can talk to either one of you just fine   When it's either one, alone      But the Thanksgiving table   Is going to be pulled out bigger   If we talk at all   One of you will pull the trigger      I used to run those battle lines   Trying to smooth over what got said   Trying to get a medal   Trying to get some shrapnel in my head   Thought it was my duty   to plead and to implore   But I caught too much crossfire   In your covert war      The television talks, fills the air   So you don't have to start   You claim you territories in the rooms upstairs   To keep yourselves apart      Holy days they bring us all together   After so much left unsaid   You taught us well not to kick under the table   Kick under your breath instead      I used to stand between you   Trying to smooth over what got said   Trying to get a medal   Trying to get some shrapnel in my head      Thought it was my duty   To plead and to implore   But I caught too much crossfire   In your covert war      Of coarse there was the anger where the love is strong   It spilled like gasoline   It's crude but its a power we can draw upon   If it fuels the right machine      I love you and I'd never want to see you bleed   When comments cut like steel   So to hold your fire I'd block the shot and take the hit for you   As if I could not feel      I thought they'd passed right through me   That I had no scars to hide   But now I open up and try to love   And I find they're still inside      I used to run those battle lines trying to plead and to implore   Please won't you hold the cease fire out a little longer   Until the next uproar      I took it all in childhood   But I can't take it no more   'cause I caught too much crossfire   In your covert war