[Verse 1] I said “mercy” with a missing sound, You heard the door I couldn’t open. I bent each syllable around The little truth I’d kept unspoken. My tongue took wrong turns through the page, And every stumble left a mark; You didn’t correct the crooked phrase— You read the meaning in the dark. [Pre-Chorus] Now the errors gather, word by word, A grammar no old book has heard. [Chorus] Call it the language of almost-right, Where “I am broken” turns to “I am here.” A falling stress, a lifted vowel, A map that only we can hear. I’ll speak tomorrow with this mouth, No borrowed measure, no disguise; My flaws have made a country now— I’m learning how its borders rise. [Verse 2] I name the fear “blue-window,” The ache “a chair left warm.” You answer in a phrase I made, And it can shelter us from storm. [Pre-Chorus] Each crooked word becomes a key; The next one sounds more like me. [Chorus] Call it the language of almost-right, Where “I am broken” turns to “I am here.” A falling stress, a lifted vowel, A map that only we can hear. I’ll speak tomorrow with this mouth, No borrowed measure, no disguise; My flaws have made a country now— I’m learning how its borders rise. [Outro] I’m not corrected. I’m becoming. Say it back, and let it grow.
