[Verse 1] I held the little thing too close Not cruel, but not free A heartbeat dressed in feathers A sky that trusted me He shook inside my palms Like a prayer with a pulse I wanted to be gentle I wanted too much He looked at me like weather Like distance with an eye Like every soft thing leaves you If you love it wrong or right [Pre-Chorus] And I could feel the story turning In the bones beneath his wings Some endings do not ask permission They just teach the page to sing [Chorus] The sparrow changed the story Stole my heart and called it sky I opened both my hands for him But I was not ready to say goodbye The sparrow changed the story Left me heavy, left me sore I let him fly because I had to Not because I wanted more [Verse 2] I hate the empty afterwards The air where he had been Tiny claws still ghosting softly In the weather of my skin I want to call him selfish I want to call him mine I want to bless the leaving I want to curse the sky But none of that will hold him And none of it will heal Some birds are only honest When they make the distance real [Pre-Chorus] So I stand there with my hands out Like a villain or a saint Not knowing which is truer Only knowing what restraint takes [Chorus] The sparrow changed the story Stole my heart and called it sky I opened both my hands for him But I was not ready to say goodbye The sparrow changed the story Left me heavy, left me sore I let him fly because I had to Not because I wanted more [Bridge] No cage, no cure No clean little moral No gold on the wound No song in the quarrel Just a small brown blur Becoming somewhere else And me with all this tenderness I cannot give myself I hope he finds the branches I hope the world is kind I hope he never knows How badly I wanted to close my fingers tight And I hate that I mean it The kindness and the grief The wish for him to flourish The wish he had chosen me [Final Chorus] The sparrow changed the story Stole my heart and called it sky I opened both my hands for him But I was not ready to say goodbye The sparrow changed the story Left me heavy, left me sore I let him fly because I loved him And I hated him for more The sparrow changed the story No cage, no cure, no why Just my hands still open Under an emptied sky [Outro] I let the sparrow fly away Begrudgingly, holy, torn He left me with the story changed And a heart too sore to mourn
