Nobody prays where I come from We just bleed quieter on Sundays Built altars out of what we couldn't bury And called the hunger holy Sin don't look like sin When sin is all that fed you When the only hands that reached for you Were reaching just to break you I remember light Before I learned what light costs We are the ones who burned too early We are the wound that learned to walk Built from the wreckage of what loved us poorly Tender enough to feel it Hard enough to not stop I don't sleep clean Haven't since I was seven Something got taken in a room I don't name And I built a whole empire On top of that shame Called it strength Called it hunger Called it not needing anyone But a locked door Is still a locked door Even when you're the one Who swallowed the key I grew in the dark Like something that wasn't supposed to survive Every soft thing in me Had to learn How to carry a knife What do you call the part of you That refused to die Even when you asked it to I call it the only honest thing I own We didn't choose this fire But we are fluent in it now We didn't choose this darkness But God We know how to move inside it We are the ones who burned too early We are the wound that learned to walk Built from the wreckage of what loved us poorly Tender enough to feel it Hard enough to not stop Tender enough to feel it Hard enough To not STOP The chapel had no roof So we learned to pray in the rain Still here Still here Still here
