Prescription nation

[Verse 1] They said the cure was in a bottle, but the bottle was a chain. White coats with pens in their pockets wrote futures in pain. Mama went to the doctor for a backache, came back with a habit, And the pills didn’t heal her, they just dug a deeper attic. Whole towns turned into graveyards with neon signs, Pharmacies like candy stores, pushing out lines. Children watched their parents nod off at the table, Dinner left cold, lights left unstable. It’s the American way — profit before people. Stock markets rise while the church bells steeple. CEOs cash bonuses off addiction statistics, And the obituary section just keeps getting thicker. They called it medicine, but it felt more like w*r, And the frontlines weren’t overseas, they were right at our door. Little orange bottles stacked like bricks in the drawer, Whole families disappeared, we don’t see them no more. [Chorus] Prescription nation, drowning in pills, Looking for salvation but we’re choking on bills. They sell us the sickness, then they sell us the cure, But the cure keeps killing, and the sickness endures. [ Verse 2] I knew a kid named James, sixteen years old. Football star with a shoulder too bold. Doctor said “take these, it’ll numb out the pain,” But the script was a leash and the leash was a chain. A year down the line, he was nodding in class, Dropped out of school, dreams gone in a flash. Another year later, we were wearing all black, Closed casket funeral, no bringing him back. This ain’t fiction, it’s the truth they conceal. Whole counties turned hollow while the doctors got deals. Politicians shook hands with the men in the suits, While the kids down the block tied knots in the loops. It’s a plague in slow motion, a needle in veins, A quiet g******e written out in brand names. From Oxy to Fentanyl, the dosage just climbs, Till the heartbeat is silent, and the coroner signs. [Chorus] Prescription nation, drowning in pills, Looking for salvation but we’re choking on bills. They sell us the sickness, then they sell us the cure, But the cure keeps killing, and the sickness endures. [Verse 3] And the worst part is, they still call it legal. Still call it treatment while it buries our people. If it was the corner boys selling white in the dark, They’d be locked in a cell, with a permanent mark. But the men in the towers wear a tie and a grin, Shake hands in the daylight while they profit off sin. And the headlines read overdoses climb, But the stocks keep soaring like it’s all just fine. I spit this verse for the mothers who cry at the sink, For the fathers who d***n in another stiff drink. For the towns where the jobs left but the pain stayed behind, For the children still chasing what they’ll never find. [Bridge] So don’t tell me it’s healing when the whole block’s gone, When the needles are the lyrics of a funeral song. If America’s prescription is a life in decay, Then we’re all just patients with a bill to pay.