[OPEN] Seventeen years of silence shattered with one question. I knew the answer. I had worn it every day. [VERSE 1] Hidden in plain sight. Good camouflage. Letterman jacket, zipper drawn. Desire beneath it, warm against skin. The comfort of the lining holding everything in. I knew who I was. That wasn't the fear. The fear was somebody else deciding when I had to appear. [PRE-CHORUS] The secret was mine. The fear was mine. Even the hiding had been mine. But the unveiling— wasn't. [CHORUS] You tore away the covering for your own relief. A full-body bandage ripped clean from me. You wanted the truth until the truth was mine. Then left me standing on the other side. No hand. No shelter. No time. Just air where there used to be the lining. [VERSE 2] It dared not speak its name. So someone spoke it for me. One question. Seventeen years falling open. And suddenly every room knew. No support. No consideration. Only silence with different information. [PRE-CHORUS] I had worn the answer under everything. Soft against the body. Safe beneath the seams. Then somebody reached in and made the private visible. [CHORUS] You tore away the covering for your own relief. Then watched the void open underneath me. You wanted the truth until the truth was mine. Then left me standing on the other side. No hand. No shelter. No time. Just air where there used to be the lining. [BREAKDOWN] The void was comfortable for everyone but me. So I learned to cross it. You told me how wrong I was. I lived anyway. [HARMONIC BLOOM] And I lived. I lived. I lived without permission. Free enough to finally hear my own name inside my own skin. [FINAL VERSE] Now it's mostly memory. Mostly distance. Mostly something that happened to another version of me. But loneliness has a long memory. It still knows the room. Still knows the question. Still remembers the sentence put upon me undeserved. [FINAL CHORUS] The secret was mine. The life is mine. The years beyond it became mine. You tore away the covering— but you never owned what lived beneath. No shame. No sentence. No need to hide. Only skin where there used to be the lining. [FINAL] Seventeen years of silence. One question. And all these years later— I am still the answer. [HARD END]
