album cover
Pennies
album cover
Pennies was released on May 29, 2026 by Eliot Thompson Music as a part of the album To Want Something
ReleasedMay 29, 2026
LabelEliot Thompson Music
LanguageEnglish
BPM80
Melodicness
Acousticness
Valence
Danceability
Energy

Lyrics

Withdrawal?
No
Disguised Text
Wait a minute
Eighth grader
I'm fourteen years old today
I wanted cake with chocolate frosting and fondue yesterday
But I guess cake won't save me from what's happening
'Cause yesterday I did a bad thing
I'm fourteen years old today
Going to school with my gaze to the floor today
I hope all of them decide not to glance away
Is what's happening because of my actions or fate?
I did a bad thing
I had five or six friends, no more
Not popular with any of the girls
I wasn't sure exactly
Why what I said was so detrimental
I told one of my friends his depression wasn't a mental problem
Worthy of my empathy
'Cause he called me a bitch
Digital fists, hurt my pride"I'm not shit"
Ganged up on me with the other boys
My voice had no worth
So I thought the best thing to do was to hit him where it hurt
He told all of my friends that I didn't deserve
A happy birthday
I didn't understand fully
The lesson that I took away from that event was truly
That I needed to bite my tongue
I lost all of my friends that month
I'm in high school now
Traversing my life with the lesson I learned
And there's nothing to fight for now
Almost worse
The mental illness I had ridiculed had come to bite me now
I blamed the fact I'm thirteen- no- fourteen now
All in my thoughts, just then, a girl sat down
A junior
You can call Amanda
We met theater
I hardly knew her
But it was clear
I looked sad sitting alone in the morning
In the mirror
Eyes were bloodshot, weary
Tears wouldn't escape
But I looked damn near close to breaking
At least that's what she told me when she chose to sit down
She didn't ask about where I was at
Just looked around and said
A penny for your thoughts
I stayed silent
She asked me every morning we sat down before our classes started
A penny for your thoughts
I didn't get sick of the question
We talked every morning briefly about nothing and everything
Fast forward a few months later
I made new friends
I valued them above my own will to live, but oh
In less than six months
Conflict arose
And the past was nothing
In comparison to the hair I lost
Chasing love I was aware I'd never fair against
I still spoke to Amanda
No longer randoms, she was a mentor and
Always"a penny for your thoughts" to commence the morning
I didn't value it like I should've
The kindness of pity
Now a desire to empty our minds of envy of another's life
And at the time
I fell back in love with that other girl
This time the pain was of another world
Six more months of torture just to be sure
That her and I could never work out
It was summer, I didn't see Amanda
We burnt out
I didn't need it
Had friends, had purpose
Had a will to be here
Took it for granted
I made another mistake
In a fit of grief and pain, I took my soul away
Carved it out of my arm in front of the girl I had made out to be more than a friend
All it was was history repeating again
I did a bad thing
I'm fifteen years old now
I have been for awhile but I'm living it more now
Guilt and self-loathing
Stacking like bones all on my shoulders
My friends aren't the closest right now
So it's my focus
To get to the end of the tunnel so I can show her
I'm not a monster
It's not that I want her to love me anymore
I have friends my age now to be sure
They're good people
Hopefully I follow suit
And maybe the things that provoke me will follow too
I'm back in theater
A community that I've held so dear
The girl I loved, and Amanda
Now they're seniors
I proceed through it with tunnel vision
My relentless goal even repels memories of this time period
Like how I didn't recognize the entourage
Surrounding the girl that I'd once loved
After all Amanda
Still sat with me at lunch sometimes
But something changed
Somewhere along the line
The way she looked at me
There was something in her eyes
And I didn't want to care
All the sudden, our conversations were awkward and scarce
I knew later that she found out
The evil I committed
Misusing someone's care to protect me from ending it
Even though my issues were my own business
A year and a half long process of being the victim
Of circumstance
And poor decision making
I made the final choice
So it's fair for the world to blame me
Eventually we made up
An apology by me
An acknowledgement of defeat
A shot for future peace
The circle closed itself
The story we delivered to eaves-droppers
But what you didn't see
Behind the scenes
That broke my heart into pieces years later
The community I loved valued approval from a leader
Validity be damned if you're controlled by envy and fear
Nobody was evil
Is what I learned much too late
Her and I both made incredible mistakes
She confided in the friends she had
And in the end, so did I in my journey
The difference was the people around us
And not the story
My friends lifted me on my feet and gave me hope
So surely
I could be whole again
Her friends made the decision to hurt the man who caused her pain
A choice in retrospect
I cannot blame
I have a thousand regrets
And the one at the apex
Eventually became
Amanda
A person with less presence than the girl or my friends
But I never got the chance to
Thank her
For sticking around longer than the others
Enough time for me to fall in love, make friends, and smother
Any remembrance of my fourteenth birthday
In every way
You never meant to hurt me
When you chose not to stay
And move with a tide of other people who believed they knew
What her and I went through
The pain
You represent to me a lot
Exactly all the ways that I can hurt someone
Even if not directly
In my chaos you and others were caught in
The trauma I cope with that tries desperately to be forgotten
Everyday I'm terrified these memories of the bad things will be lost
I have a penny
And it's worth a fraction of your thoughts
So then
What's the answer?
That's all I need now
Written by: Eliot Thompson

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