THE BRIGHTEST LIE

You looked like mercy from far away You came in dressed in perfect light with your clean hands and your careful tone A little heaven in your mouth a little white around the bones You said the pain would quiet down if I stood still and faced the glow But every promise left a mark in places only I would know I learned how bright a lie can get before it starts to show the wire I learned some halos only shine because they sit above a fire And I let it in like a hymn, like a cure like a door that would hold like a love that was pure But the closer it came the more clearly I saw all that light in your hands was just another law The brightest lie wore a halo in the smoke The brightest lie put its fingers at my throat It called itself salvation called itself the light But every perfect answer only pulled me from my life The brightest lie still burns the hardest white Brightest lie brightest lie I kept your language in my chest like broken glass behind the ribs Every silver little truth was sharpened by the way you lived You said devotion meant restraint You said surrender made me clean But I have seen the holy mask split wide at every hidden seam I know the color of control when it arrives dressed up as grace I know how fear can wear a crown and still call weakness faith So I let it crack let the white paint fall let the beautiful fraud lose the shape of it all And the voice in my blood that I buried to survive rose up red through the gold and came back alive The brightest lie wore a halo in the smoke The brightest lie put its fingers at my throat It called itself salvation called itself the light But every perfect answer only pulled me from my life The brightest lie still burns the hardest white I don't need another heaven that requires me to disappear I don't need another kindness built on discipline and fear If your light demands my silence keep your altar, keep your name I was never made for worship I was made for flame Let it blind Let it break Let the false gold separate If it shines if it stings I will call it what it is The brightest lie wore a halo in the smoke The brightest lie put its fingers at my throat It called itself salvation called itself the light But every perfect answer only pulled me from my life The brightest lie still burns the hardest white Still burns Still burns the hardest white