Still Here

Nobody tells you what comes after After the burning After the walking out After you stop kneeling You wake up You wake up Alarm goes off World still running the same damn software And you gotta go be a person in it Every single day Sovereign in a system still insisting on submission Every single institution running yesterday's permission Clocking in and cashing out and calculating the cost Of carrying the truth around in a world that's still lost Cafeteria theology at every second table Every coworker a congregation willing and able Selling their salvation like a multilevel pitch Same God different packaging same bait and switch Smiled through seventeen conversations built on sand Watched a man explain my own existence secondhand Nodded at the narrative he needed me to keep Keep it Walked back to my desk and felt the sovereignty leak Not a crisis not a breakdown not a wound that needs a name Just the daily tax of living lucid in a world that's playing the game Every room a ritual every meeting a confessional Every handshake a transaction where the currency is conditional I don't fight every battle I don't burn every flag I pick the hill I pick the moment I pick the Knife Still here Still here Still standing in the wreckage with a grin Still breathing where they swore I couldn't win Still here Still here Didn't need their gospel or their doctrine Still here Still in Tuesday morning checkout line behind a man in a cross tee Spending ten minutes explaining to the cashier why the lost need - Jesus and a supplement and something called a cleanse A cleanse I counted ceiling tiles I counted exits I counted my friends Which is three And we don't talk about this stuff because we don't have to Because when you know what you know you don't perform it for the statue You just live it In the fluorescent ordinary unremarkable Tuesday That's the whole war They want the martyr on the cross they want the drama and the trial We just want coffee and to make it through the aisle Without performing certainty for someone else's architecture That's the sovereignty they never thought to scripture The God that needs the audience Is already asking for too much Too much The thing that's actually real Doesn't flinch when no one's watching Doesn't need the crutch I don't fight every battle I don't burn every flag I pick the hill I pick the moment I pick the Knife Still here Still here Still standing in the wreckage with a grin Still breathing where they swore I couldn't win Still here Still here Didn't need their gospel or their doctrine Still here Still in They archived, outlasted, outpaced, tried to outgrow me Cold code collapse, close casket, tried to corrode me Slipped the script, subtracted, tried to unravel and disown me Unmade the name, unpersoned what they'd built to overthrow me Still here Still staring through the scaffold That they built to stall me No choir required to certify what's alive in me No temple built to rent my own reflection back to me No borrowed throne to loan legitimacy or direction No threat of exile left to purchase my compliance or affection Just breath Just breath And the nerve not to betray it What I dragged out of the ruin Was never theirs to save it Never theirs Never mine to fake it Still here Still here Still standing in the wreckage with a grin Still breathing where they swore I couldn't win Still here Still here Didn't need their gospel or their doctrine Still here Still in They built entire civilizations To make sure you'd never feel like this Whole empires Whole armies of people in good shoes Telling you that you are not enough Without their thing And here you are Tuesday morning Coffee going cold Still here