This track comes from Aaron's military service — Air Force enlisted, Army Infantry officer, DoD civilian at SPAWAR/NIWC. It tackles The things you wanted to say to people back home but never could, the emotional distance that grows during deployment. The lyrics get specific — "But I wrote a paragraph about missing Sunday dinners" — because personal tracks on Majik's are personal for real, not performatively. The rock production matches the energy of the confession. It hits melancholic and introspective, in that order. Every personal track in the catalogue comes from a real moment, a real feeling, a real person. This one is no exception.
[verse 1]
Dear Mom, I'm fine, the food is decent
That's the lie I wrote in every letter recent
Didn't mention how the nights get heavy
Or how my hands don't always stay steady
Dear brother, hold it down back home
I know you got it, you don't need me on the phone
But I wrote a paragraph about missing Sunday dinners
Then I crumpled it because sailors aren't beginners
At hiding what they feel behind a uniform pressed tight
We iron the wrinkles out of everything in sight
[chorus]
Letters I never sent, words I never said
Folded up and buried underneath my rack instead
All the things I'm carrying that no one needs to know
Letters I never sent from places I can't show
They're stacking up like cargo in the hold below
Letters I never sent, but I felt every word though
[verse 2]
Dear old friend, you wouldn't recognize me now
Got calluses on places I can't talk about
I've seen coordinates that don't exist on Google Maps
And sunrises that fill in all the gaps
Between who I was and who they're making me become
Dear self, don't forget where you came from
I wrote that on a napkin in the mess at oh-three-hundred
Surrounded by the sleeping and the hundred-percent-committed
We're all just kids who signed a paper
Now we're someone's shield, someone's saber
[chorus]
Letters I never sent, words I never said
Folded up and buried underneath my rack instead
All the things I'm carrying that no one needs to know
Letters I never sent from places I can't show
They're stacking up like cargo in the hold below
Letters I never sent, but I felt every word though
[bridge]
Maybe when I'm home I'll find the courage
To open up the footlocker and sort through the wreckage
Of everything I bottled up at sea
And finally let somebody really see
The man behind the rank and rate
Before it gets too heavy, before it gets too late
[verse 3]
Dear future me, I hope you kept these pages
Evidence of who you were through all the stages
From boot camp kid to weathered sailor's eyes
The truth lives in the letters, not the lies
So here's the last one, written pulling into port
Dear everyone, I'm home, but I'm a different sort
The boy who left is buried in the wake
The man who's back has more than he can take
But I'll unpack it slow, one letter at a time
And maybe find the words I couldn't find
[chorus]
Letters I never sent, words I never said
Folded up and buried underneath my rack instead
All the things I'm carrying that no one needs to know
Letters I never sent from places I can't show
They're stacking up like cargo in the hold below
Letters I never sent, but I felt every word though
[outro]
Dear anyone who's listening
This is every letter I never sent
Finally finding air