(I do hope the first-person nature of the lyrics will not lead you astray.) No Victory in the Fire Mmm… No mercy in the fire. No wisdom in the blade. Mmm… I lay the weapon down. I kept your name like a stone beneath my tongue, waiting for the hour I could make you feel what you had done. I rehearsed the words, I sharpened every line, called it self-respect, but it was only borrowed time. I thought the hurt would make a kingdom of my chest, but every throne I built from pain refused to let me rest. And every little justice I imagined in the dark left another quiet bruise where there should have been a heart. Anger has a golden voice when it tells you to remain. It promises a crown, then teaches you your chains. There is no victory in the fire, no mercy in the blade. Revenge will not return the years or mend what was betrayed. I carried every wound like a debt I had to pay, but resentment is a room where the light forgets the way. So I will not hate you just to keep you near. I will not burn my future to prove that you were here. There is no victory in the fire. I lay the weapon down. I lay the weapon down. I used to think forgiveness meant defeat, a gentle little lie for the ones too tired to speak. But silence has its teeth, and peace can learn to bite, when walking from the wreckage is the only way to fight. You may never say the thing I need to hear. You may never turn around and meet me in the mirror. But I can leave the room without asking for applause, and close the door behind me without needing one more war. Bitterness is patient. It waits beside the bed. It speaks in perfect reasons with another person’s head. There is no victory in the fire, no mercy in the blade. Revenge will not return the years or mend what was betrayed. I carried every wound like a debt I had to pay, but resentment is a room where the light forgets the way. So I will not hate you just to keep you near. I will not burn my future to prove that you were here. There is no victory in the fire. I lay the weapon down. I lay the weapon down. Let the record show I was wounded. Let the walls repeat I survived. Let the truth stand still in the hallway, half-awake and half-alive. I have fed this grief with my breathing. I have dressed it up as control. But the wound is not a kingdom, and the pain is not my soul. There is no victory in the fire, no freedom in the chain. No crown for keeping score with old familiar pain. I carried every wound like a proof that I was right, but resentment kept me loyal to the darkest part of night. So I will not hate you just to keep you near. I will not lose tomorrow to make yesterday clear. There is no victory in the fire. I lay the weapon down. I lay the weapon down. Mmm… Not for you. For me now. I lay the weapon down. I lay the weapon down. Mmm… No mercy in the fire. No wisdom in the blade.
