[Intro] [low room tone, distant tape hiss] [quiet male voice] Everybody got a story. Somebody just has to listen long enough to hear it. [Verse 1 — conscious rap] I got messages coming through at midnight, somebody needs a song, somebody needs a lifeline, somebody's locked up, somebody just got free, somebody's losing somebody they were supposed to keep. A mother says, “I wasn't there when she needed me,” a daughter grows up learning what silence means, a man says pleasure ain't freedom when the room gets small, another says get back up every time you fall. And somewhere in between all the words we send, a friend disappears, then comes back again, another one's fighting just to stay on course, trying to save the whole world while his own ship's torn. I don't know where the boundaries are anymore, between the song and the person standing at the door, between what I write and what somebody gives, between telling a story and teaching it to live. [Pre-Chorus] [drums thin out] Maybe we're not broken. Maybe we're becoming. Maybe every voice we thought was lost was only waiting for somebody to listen. [Chorus — reggae enters] [deep bass, skanking guitar, warm organ] Still here. Still breathing. Still carrying what we couldn't leave behind. Still here. Still reaching. Trying to turn the wreckage into something we can find. One story. One voice. A thousand ways to say the same thing: I'm still here. [Verse 2 — rap over reggae groove] Da'Mond sends a thought from somewhere behind a locked door, talking like tomorrow might still be worth fighting for. Rebecca says there's something in the rhythm and the rhyme, maybe reggae gives the words another place to find. Black flags, white flags, doors we couldn't close, people walking through the wreckage nobody else knows. A girl asks her mother for a little gas-station change, while somewhere underneath it all they're both changing. Somebody says, “I disappeared.” Somebody says, “I'm here now.” Somebody says, “I tried.” Somebody says, “Don't quit now.” And every voice arrives carrying different weather, but somehow all the fragments fit together. [Dub Break] [drums drop, bass and echoing guitar remain] [whispered fragments] Still here... Don't quit... Get back up... I'm here now... You are not alone... [echo trails] alone... alone... alone... [Verse 3 — slower, denser rap] Maybe this was never supposed to be an album. Maybe it's a room where the unfinished get to gather. A place where a prison sentence doesn't get the final word, where a mother can finally say, “I hear you,” and be heard. Where the person who vanished doesn't have to explain, where grief can sit beside hope without pretending they're the same, where somebody can send three lines written on a phone and find out those three lines don't have to die alone. And maybe that's the strange thing we're building here: not perfection, not answers, just evidence that somebody was here. [Chorus — full reggae] Still here. Still breathing. Still carrying what we couldn't leave behind. Still here. Still reaching. Trying to turn the wreckage into something we can find. One story. One voice. A thousand ways to say the same thing: I'm still here. [Written Prayer — sparse dub] [soft spoken voice] God, I don't know what to do with all these stories. I don't know how to carry every person who reaches for me. So teach me the difference between carrying someone and trying to save them. Teach me when to speak. Teach me when to listen. And when somebody disappears, help me leave a light on without chasing them into the darkness. If they come back, let there be somewhere safe to land. If they don't, let them know they mattered. Amen. [Outro] [bass continues, distant guitar, tape echo] Still here... Not fixed. Not finished. Still here. [echo] still here... still here...
