“BREATHE!” [Verse 1] The nurses wore exhaustion Like halos burnt in smoke White shoes sliding down linoleum While the morphine made me float Blood beneath my fingernails From clawing at my chest Trying to find the little girl Who still believed God knew best But faith started tasting chemical Crushed crystal on a spoon Prayers falling from my mouth Like broken teeth in motel rooms CNN glowed blue in silence Another war on screen Funny how the whole world burns While you’re learning how to breathe ⸻ [Pre-Chorus] You swore the smoke would clear I swore I’d be alright But every angel I ever admired Had bruises under white light ⸻ [Chorus] You said, “Baby, breathe…” While the monitors screamed While the hospital lights Turned saints into machines I was seventeen Trying to outrun me Now every prayer tastes Like blood in my teeth Tell me what kind of God Puts a battlefield in my veins Then calls it growing up When it leaves us changed You held me like mercy Soft hands on my grief And for one holy second I almost learned to breathe ⸻ [Verse 2] There’s a ghost inside my girlhood Still dancing barefoot drunk Before the scans and sedatives Before survival became luck Now my mother folds my laundry Like evidence in court My father speaks in careful tones Like grief is something caught Every lover after you Felt temporary, thin Like kissing through an oxygen mask Trying to let somebody in I watched pretty girls go hollow Mascara cracking at sinks Lip gloss, pills, and ambulance sirens Teaching us how not to think ⸻ [Pre-Chorus] We called it getting better Because I stayed alive But the war kept taking pieces Even after I survived ⸻ [Chorus] You said, “Baby, breathe…” While the monitors screamed While the hospital lights Turned saints into machines I was seventeen Trying to outrun me Now every prayer tastes Like blood in my teeth Tell me what kind of God Puts a battlefield in my veins Then calls it growing up When it leaves us changed You held me like mercy Soft hands on my grief And for one holy second I almost learned to breathe ⸻ [Bridge] Maybe heaven’s just a waiting room Plastic chairs, TV static Where all the girls who survived themselves Learn healing isn’t magic Maybe love’s another substance We romanticize to death Another beautiful hallucination Keeping ghosts inside our chest But you— You looked at me like I wasn’t ruined Like I wasn’t smoke in skin And God, that almost killed me more Than everything that did ⸻ [Final Chorus] You said, “Baby, breathe…” While the monitors screamed While the hospital lights Turned angels into machines I was seventeen Trying to outrun me Now every prayer tastes Like blood in my teeth Tell me what kind of God Puts a battlefield in my veins Then calls it growing up When it leaves us changed You held me like mercy Like I was worth keeping And for one holy second I almost believed it ⸻ [Outro] The nurses changed the IV bags Morning bled through the blinds Somewhere a machine kept singing Keeping time beside my life And you— Still whispering, “Baby… breathe.”
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