What is “Therapy on Tuesdays” about?
"Therapy on Tuesdays" follows a man into a counselor's office each Tuesday at ten, unlearning the idea that a man in therapy is a man who broke. Kairo West describes sitting silent for six minutes, opening up about his father, and realizing he has been running from a six-year-old self who wanted to be held. The song settles on progress rather than a cure, "I ain't healed, I'm healing," and ends by speaking to other men in the waiting room. It is track eleven on Baldwin Bus Receipt.
Therapy on Tuesdays lyrics
Tuesday at ten
Same office, same chair
She asks how I am
Listen
I used to think a man in therapy was a man who broke
Now I think a man in therapy is a man who spoke
When everybody else around me was just coping loud
I was the one chose the quiet room over the crowd
She asked me a question in the second session I couldn't answer
And I sat there for six minutes like a tower built by an amateur
I was raised to stuff it down, she asked me to put it up
Put it on the table between us like a second cup
I told her about my father, she didn't flinch or fix me
She just wrote a little note and let the silence grip me
Turns out I been running a marathon from a six-year-old
Telling him to man up when he really just wanted held
Therapy on Tuesdays
Learning how to put the weight down
Therapy on Tuesdays
Learning how to let the love in this town
It ain't weakness, it's a map
It ain't leaking, it's a tap
Therapy on Tuesdays
Therapy on Tuesdays
The hood ain't got a stigma, it got a silence
The silence ain't a strength, it's a rented violence
I pay the man to listen, that's a strange kind of holy
Teaching me my own voice ain't a trap, it's a story
Maya Angelou said there is no greater agony
Than bearing an untold story inside of me
So I'm telling, I'm telling, every week I'm telling
The parts of me I used to be forever burying
The session ends at ten fifty, I walk into the sun
The sky ain't magically fixed, I just got a little more room
I ain't healed, I'm healing, that's a different sentence
I'm the kind of man who shows up for his own repentance
Therapy on Tuesdays
Learning how to put the weight down
Therapy on Tuesdays
Learning how to let the love in this town
It ain't weakness, it's a map
It ain't leaking, it's a tap
Therapy on Tuesdays
Therapy on Tuesdays
To every brother in the waiting room pretending to check his phone
I see you
To every brother on the couch saying his first true sentence
I see you
To every brother who called the number in the crisis
I see you
Keep going
Tuesday at ten
Tuesday at ten
I'll be there
I'll be there