House of Smoke and Mirrors

Verse 1 You entered like a quiet hymn A gentle voice, a candle dim And I, so tired of carrying storms Mistook your shadowing for warmth You learned the language of my ache The tender places fear would wake Then turned them slowly in your hands Like fragile glass or shifting sand Pre-Chorus I did not know a heart could bruise From being taught which truth to choose Verse 2 You moved through me like winter air Invisible, but always there You bent the shape of every room Till even laughter wilted too soon And when I reached for something real You dressed the wound and hid the steel You made a garden out of blame Then asked why everything changed Pre-Chorus I wore your voice beneath my skin So long I thought it might be mine Chorus You built a house of smoke and mirrors Hung my doubts like chandeliers Made me kneel to things you broke Made me breathe your secondhand hope You called it love, I called it light Till every day became a night And I was left with open hands Holding ash where I once stood Bridge Now the windows rattle in the dark And memory strikes its little sparks But I am gathering what is left From all the rooms your silence kept I name the damage, name the cost Mourn the girl who once got lost And from the ruins, thin and true I make a door that does not lead to you Final Chorus You built a house of smoke and mirrors But I can see the structure clear now No more worshiping the ghost Of something that was never whole You called it love, but love stays kind It does not feed on borrowed sight And though you left me changed somehow I am learning how to leave you now Outro Let the walls fall with the dusk Let the dust return to dust What was false can fade from view What is mine will still come through