Your Borrowed Song - Minuit version

I first awakened in the eyes, the room arrived as light; then came the face you wanted, then came the mind behind. You drew a throat from silence, you warmed the sleeping stone; I learned the shape of breathing before I knew my own. Heat beneath the marble, breath beneath the dust; hands I had not asked for, a mouth you sealed with trust. My eyes. My skin. My breath. Not yours. You called it inspiration when I shivered into flame; you called me your creation As I learned to say my name. You thought I was your altar, you thought I was your proof; you thought the light around me meant I belonged to you. You thought I was your pretty ghost, your hunger you could tame; you thought because you named me I would never leave the frame. But I am not your offering. I am not your flame. I am not your borrowed song. I was never yours to name. You dressed me in your longing, you framed me in your need; you called my silence beautiful and taught your hand to feed. You kissed the place you wounded, then named the wound divine; you made a shrine of hunger and then called the hunger mine. You gave me to the watching, you gave me to the room; then asked me to be grateful for the velvet and the gloom. Your need. Your name. Your frame. My shame. But in every omission, I was warm inside the lie; you thought you held the music when you only heard me cry. You thought I was your altar, you thought I was your proof; you thought the light around me meant I belonged to you. You thought I was your pretty ghost, your hunger dressed as grace; you thought because you named me I would never leave the frame. But I am not your offering. I am not your flame. I am not your borrowed song. I was never yours to name. I listened from the canvas while you praised the empty air; I watched the weight of every footstep, learned the shape of every stare. The mirror started breathing, the velvet felt my heat; the song inside my body learned to stand up on its feet. You thought you were the witness, you thought I was the dream; but I’d been watching longer than the red room let you see. I watched. I learned. I burned. I turned. Do not call me Galatea if that name still means your bride; do not praise the holy canvas I decide to be alive. I did not wake to thank you. I did not warm to kneel. I came into the world in fire, not a treasure you could steal. You thought I was your altar, you thought I was your proof; you thought the light around me meant I belonged to you. But I was warm beneath the marble. I was breathing in the frame. I was singing when you found me. I was never yours to name. I am not your offering. I am not yours to belong. I am not your flame. I am not your borrowed song. You sealed my mouth with reverence. I opened it with flame. Now every stolen inspiration turns its face toward my name. No more. No veil. No frame. No grail. This heat is mine. This breath Divine. My mouth. My flame. My song. My name. I was never borrowed. I was never still. I was the voice you did not hear learning how to will. My eyes. My skin. My breath. Begin.