I wake up in the middle of something that doesn’t end same ceiling, same crack, same feeling again like the room learned how to breathe on its own and I’m just here because it hasn’t let go there’s a delay between thought and recognition like my mind has to check with something else before it agrees even simple things feel filtered before I’m allowed to understand them the air feels layered like different versions of the same room are stacked together and I’m only seeing one at a time there’s a weight in the air that knows my name not spoken out loud but it lands the same in the hollow between every thought I try to keep something answers me when I don’t speak I start noticing patterns that shouldn’t matter repeated sounds, repeated timings like the world is syncing itself around me I counted the days but they don’t stay still they bend when I look like they’re testing my will and the mirror doesn’t show what I do it shows what stays when I’m not looking through sometimes I catch it mid-change my reflection slightly behind my movement like it’s deciding what I’m supposed to look like I swear I locked every part of this place but the sound still crawls up into my face like footsteps walking in patterns I know but I never taught them where to go it feels less like intrusion now more like familiarity I didn’t agree to it starts in the silence behind my teeth like something chewing underneath not pain, not fear, just something there learning the shape of the air I wear and I feel it when I try to breathe like something else is breathing for me not outside, not under the bed but replacing the thoughts inside my head even my pauses feel occupied like silence isn’t empty anymore just another layer I can’t interpret CHORUS IT DOESN’T COME FROM OUTSIDE IT GROWS WHERE I TRY TO HIDE FEEDING OFF EVERYTHING I DENY UNTIL THERE’S NOTHING LEFT THAT’S MINE IT DOESN’T COME FROM OUTSIDE IT LEARNS THE SHAPE OF MY LIFE AND EVERY TIME I CLOSE MY EYES IT FEELS MORE LIKE IT’S INSIDE I try to say it’s nothing at all just cracks in the dark, just noise in the wall but the more I deny what I feel inside the more it stops needing to hide there’s no reaction to fear anymore like it’s already accounted for it fear just another expected input and I don’t know when it stopped being mine when the edges blurred and crossed the line between what I am and what it became but it answers faster when I hear my name sometimes I don’t feel like I said it like the word came out before I decided I don’t sleep—I lose track of time in a loop that folds back into my mind and every version of me I leave behind gets quieter, but never dies they don’t feel gone just relocated there’s a version of me that never leaves waiting in the gaps between my teeth and when I forget to stay aware it starts thinking like I’m not there it doesn’t knock, it doesn’t break it just becomes every mistake I make and I feel it growing in the places I don’t want to know sometimes I stop mid-action because I can’t tell if I started it or if I’m just completing something already begun my skin feels borrowed, my voice feels split like something else is talking through it and when I try to shut it down it speaks softer but still drowns me out CHORUS IT DOESN’T COME FROM OUTSIDE IT BUILDS INSIDE WHAT I DENY AND EVERY TIME I TRY TO FIGHT IT FEELS MORE LIKE IT’S MY LIFE IT DOESN’T COME FROM OUTSIDE IT WAS ALWAYS THERE ALL ALONG INSIDE AND EVERY TIME I TRY TO RUN IT FEELS LIKE IT’S ALREADY DONE I hear it now when the world goes still not outside—not over the hill but where I stop and begin to bend like I was never the starting end it says don’t fight, don’t run, don’t scream you already fed me everything every thought you refused to keep every part you buried too deep it doesn’t sound like a voice anymore more like confirmation I feel it under every word I say like I’m translating it wrong every day and the more I try to cut it free the more it rewrites what’s left of me I tried to starve it, I tried to pray but it doesn’t leave, it doesn’t die it just learns how to occupy and I stop noticing the change CHORUS IT DOESN’T COME FROM OUTSIDE IT IS THE PLACE I RESIDE I AM THE THING THAT I TRIED TO KILL—BUT IT NEVER DIED IT DOESN’T COME FROM OUTSIDE IT DOESN’T LEAVE WHEN I HIDE IT DOESN’T END WHEN I SAY GOODBYE IT JUST LEARNS HOW TO STAY INSIDE and now I don’t know where I end if I ever did in the first place then because something is wearing my shape so well even I can’t tell I catch myself existing without intention like I’m following instructions I never read and it’s getting quieter now like it’s finished learning how to stop being separate to be me completely CHORUS (final, fading) IT DOESN’T COME FROM OUTSIDE IT DOESN’T LEAVE WHEN I DIE IT DOESN’T NEED TO TRY IT WAS ALWAYS INSIDE
