Allowed To Stay

Verse

I come home smaller than I left,

No wound to show, no proof of theft.

I draw my knees up to my chin

And call surrender settling in.

The city hums outside the door;

I take up less. It asks for more.

Pre-Chorus

They write my hours beside my name

As if a soul could fit that frame.

The page records what I have cost,

But leaves no space for what I’ve lost.

Chorus

How much of me must disappear?

The walls creep closer every year.

I keep on meeting them halfway

And pray I’ll be allowed to stay.

If I survive but can’t be seen,

What does belonging even mean?

Verse

I kept my life in future tense

And called postponement common sense.

A neighbor murmured, “I’m all right,”

Then footsteps measured out the night.

I knew the fault line in that tone;

It ran through rooms beyond my own.

Pre-Chorus

They never needed bars of steel;

We learned to doubt the hurt we feel.

The weight I carried in my chest

Was not a sin to be confessed.

Chorus 2

How many vanish in plain sight?

The work gets done. The screens burn bright.

With every body still in place,

The absence wears a human face.

Our hearts mark time. They don’t keep score.

Who is our silence really for?

Interlude

Verse

I let my aching legs unfold.

The light is white. The floor is cold.

I knock, then wait without a word,

Half hoping that I wasn’t heard.

An answer trembles through the stone;

For once, my fear is not alone.

Pre-Chorus

My hands are shaking. Rent is due.

I lean into the sound of you.

Final-Chorus

Your whisper travels down the hall.

We shouldn’t have to live this small.

I won’t explain myself away

To buy another borrowed day.

That’s not the same as being free.

Let something bend that isn’t me.

End