[Verse 1] White Magical Hat taps the glass. "Hold still," he says, all careful hands. Cold room, pale cloth, morning light, my black sleeves loose at the wrists. I lean into the basin fast, and catch a face that wasn't last. Baltimore is miles away, but this new skin still knows my name. [Pre-Chorus] My shoulders sit a little higher. My jawline sharpens in the frame. I breathe and see the color change. Something in me stayed, and changed. [Chorus] I came in black and I stand in red I got cut by time and I came out fed I came in black and I stand in red This land took my fear and put steel in my head [Verse 2] He checks my pulse, then checks my spine, like I am both a man and sign. I joke, "Am I still me in here?" He grins like that was always clear. Two years in mud, maps, and schemes, Lancaster flags and broken dreams. I used to hold my card deck tight, now I hold a kingdom through the night. [Pre-Chorus] The boy I was is not erased. He's just a ghost I learned to face. Brown-eyed grief, Baltimore rain, gone to something raw and strange. [Chorus] I came in black and I stand in red I got cut by time and I came out fed I came in black and I stand in red This land took my fear and put steel in my head [Bridge] White Magical Hat says, "Look here." I do, and I don't flinch from fear. Red in my eyes, lean in my frame, like the land wrote over my name. Not a dream I can wake from now, not a boy who can back away. If this world asked for blood and bread, I learned to answer with my head. [Final Chorus] I came in black and I stand in red I got cut by time and I came out fed I came in black and I stand in red From Baltimore loss to a kingdom I led I came in black and I stand in red I know who I am by the light in my head
